April 20th - Essex, New Hampshire to Kennebunkport, Maine

Two things happened yesterday that I should mention. The first was that both Bob and I were stopped for the first time on the tour for speeding! We were not travelling together but were both pulled up by police using radar driving in the opposite direction and then stopping us. Luckily we were only given a warning and told to keep to the limits. Secondly, yesterday evening we had one of the finest meals any of us has ever had. The hotel, as I mentioned yesterday, is part of the new England Culinary Institute, and they produced for us a meal that was simply superb. We could not believe our luck in finding such an amazing gastronomical experience. If anyone reading this blog is thinking of visiting New England, then you MUST visit the Inn at Essex in Vermont!

Back to today's drive. This morning we woke to bright sunshine and beautiful blue skies. Our drive took us first to the state capital, Montpelier. We drove on the Interstate highway through lovely scenery with pine trees and rolling hills.

In the centre of Montpelier is a very impressive State Capital building which has a golden dome.

The town was a very interesting and is beautifully situated in the middle of pine clad hills and frozen lakes. We then drove about 50 miles to cross into our seventeenth state, New Hampshire. We then turned off the Interstate highway and took to the back roads for the drive across New Hampshire. We drove into Cardigan State Park and after a few miles the tarmac road ended and we drove on gravel through quite dense pine forests.

Thick snow was on either side of the track and not long after beginning the of the track we came up behind a snow plough clearing the road.

The drive through the park continued for about 15 miles before we returned to the road heading for Concord, the state capital of New Hampshire. Another 75 miles and we came to Portsmouth on the Atlantic coast . We then crossed the state line into Maine, our eighteenth state of the tour. We drove to, Ogunquit, one of the small towns on the Atlantic coast, and took the photo below of our car parked next to the ocean.

I looked at the speedometer and it read 6001 miles since we left California, three weeks ago. We asked one of the visitors to the beach to take our photo and Suzanne, who was from a town near Montpelier in Vermont, kindly agreed to do this for us. Thanks Suzanne.

It was a great feeling to think that we had actually crossed from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast.

Our hotel in Kennebunkport was just a few miles further on. Bob and Thelma arrived a few minutes after us, having taken a different route from Essex. We all then went for a short walk in the town. Whilst on our walk we met Beth walking her two lovely looking Labradors, or are they golden retrievers? Apologies Beth if I have it wrong!

We are staying here in Kennebunkport for at least one more night before we head back west to finish the tour at Jim and Leejun Taylor's house in Saratoga Springs, New York.