Another_Voice_MDF (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} anothervoicemdf) wrote,@ 2008-09-26 18:52:00 |
|
Wedding/Honeymoon #3- Brunch and Driving Adventures
Wednesday September 24th, Franconia, NH
On Sunday, we got up, loaded the car with all our stuff for the honeymoon, and then set off to our last official wedding event- a brunch hosted by my mother. With the help of a dear family friend, and a few family members who came by early, they had converted the activities room in my mother’s basement so it looked totally different. We had coffee, mimosas, bagels and croissaints and sandwhiches, and admist the feast those family members who hadn’t yet left town got a chance to chat about their favorite moments from the day before.
A few hours later, our stomachs as full as our car, we hit the road. We had a loose plan of where we wanted to go, but the basic idea was to be as flexible as possible. Meg and I have had wonderful times in the past on trips like this, where we have a vague idea of where we want to wind up, and a vaguer idea of the route we want to take, but plenty of possible detours, and plenty of time to explore whatever caught our eye along the way, and we have also found we love camping together, so the plan was to combine the two. We had a car full of campign gear, and information on both camp sites and hotels, as well as hiking and sightseeing spots throughout New England, and we were ready to go.
c
The rough idea was to head up to Western Mass and enjoy the wonders of “The Big E” a New England wide state fair. From there we would continue north and cut back into New York to Fort Ticonderoga, a place I had visited a few times as a kid and had wonderful memories of. From there we would take a boat across Lake Champlain and take a long scenic drive through Vermont, with a stop at the Ben and Jerry’s factory, among others. From there we would head into New Hampshire and the White Mountain Natitonal Forest, particularly the Franconia Notch area which was supposed to have wonderful waterfalls and hiking. Once we had our fill of New Hampshire the plan was to head east to Bar Harbor, Maine, where Meg went to college. After a day or two of camping or hiking or boating or whatever else caught our fancy in Maine we would start to slowly wind our way down the coast back home.
Most of it was wide open. But the one thing we knew was that we wanted to start with a nice night at a bed and breakfast –someplace wonderfully decadent and relaxing where we could spend a beautiful relaxing night and let all the stress of the wedding and all the planning slip away. The perfect way, we thought to end the whole wedding process and kick off our honeymoon.
What’s that line about best laid plans…?
So, we had a reservation at a place called The Ivory Creek Inn, in Hadley Mass. From the website and all we read, it sounded perfect for what we wanted, and close to the fair that we wanted to get to the next day. We arrived about 6, and it was everything we’d hoped. The husband of the couple that owned the place, Todd, greeted us, at the door and showed us to our room, while telling us about how he and his wife, who had 11 children, had build the large house so they could have a place for the whole family to come home to at holiday time. They rented out the rooms when family wasn’t around to pay for it all, and cooked the meals out of their own kitchen. The result was very cozy feeling, and we looked forward to a lovely night.
After relaxing for a while we decided to head into the nearby town for dinner. We had a nice meal and a pleasant drive home, but as we neared the last turn we saw flashing lights.
This was when the fun really began.
It turned out there was a bad accident up ahead, and the road was blocked off. We then set off on a quest to try and find some other route to our B&B, but between the cop giving us bad directions, being far back in the woods with very few roads that went where we needed to, and our GPS not understanding that we needed to find some other way, we kept winding up back at the same spot. After more then 90 minutes of this we finally got directions to another route, all the way on the other side of the river that the B&B was next to. So we went through three different towns, looped around a few hills, found our way to the right road--- and came to a sign that said the road was blocked, as the bridge had been washed out.
As this point we were both at that point of either laughing or crying, and I started looking around for the camera, convinced we were on some reality show for newlyweds that someone had signed us up for without telling us. We debated our options, but since we were at least 30 minutes from the original spot where we’d been cut off, and the cop had said the road might be blocked till dawn anyway, going all the back seemed pointless. Instead we just decided to surrender to the absurdity of it all, and find a room at the nearest, cheapest motel. Having been earlier thwarted, here our trust GPS could shine, and it quickly led us to the local econolodge. The flashing sign advertised a honeymoon room with Jacuzzi, and I figured the honeymoon suite at an econolodge had to worth checking out, but sadly it was unavaible, so we checked in to a basic room, got ourselves into bed and collapsed. We spent a few moments wondering if we’d get our money back from the B&B, not to mention what they would think if they found our room in the morning, bed unslept in with all our bags scattered about, and with that, we went to sleep.
Now I imagine you all are getting sick of hearing, “it could have been a disaster, but Meg and I found a way to laugh about it, and that’s how I know we’ll be a good married couple” stories, and hopefully this will be the last, but it’s the only way I can describe that night. Especially because, it all wound up working wonderfully. In the morning we drove back to the B&B, explained what happened, and they immediately told us that of course they wouldn’t charge us for the night, but they still insisted we stay for breakfast. And the breakfast was amazing! Home cooked, just as we’d hoped when we first had the B&B idea, French toast and country ham and fresh fruit, and all of it wonderful. We chatted with the couple who own the place throughout breakfast; she’s still a practicing bio-chemist and he’s a retired rocket scientist, and we talked about that, about my and Meg’s work, about how the B&B gets lots of people on parent’s weekend at the nearby schools, about how Judy, Todd’s wife, developed a love of elephants when she was a kid from reading Babar, and that’s why there are elephants scattered everywhere throughout the place. It was a lovely morning, and we told them we would definitely be back sometime soon. We packed up our bags, left some money in the room to say thank you, and hit the road for the fair.
Wednesday September 24th, Franconia, NH
On Sunday, we got up, loaded the car with all our stuff for the honeymoon, and then set off to our last official wedding event- a brunch hosted by my mother. With the help of a dear family friend, and a few family members who came by early, they had converted the activities room in my mother’s basement so it looked totally different. We had coffee, mimosas, bagels and croissaints and sandwhiches, and admist the feast those family members who hadn’t yet left town got a chance to chat about their favorite moments from the day before.
A few hours later, our stomachs as full as our car, we hit the road. We had a loose plan of where we wanted to go, but the basic idea was to be as flexible as possible. Meg and I have had wonderful times in the past on trips like this, where we have a vague idea of where we want to wind up, and a vaguer idea of the route we want to take, but plenty of possible detours, and plenty of time to explore whatever caught our eye along the way, and we have also found we love camping together, so the plan was to combine the two. We had a car full of campign gear, and information on both camp sites and hotels, as well as hiking and sightseeing spots throughout New England, and we were ready to go.
c
The rough idea was to head up to Western Mass and enjoy the wonders of “The Big E” a New England wide state fair. From there we would continue north and cut back into New York to Fort Ticonderoga, a place I had visited a few times as a kid and had wonderful memories of. From there we would take a boat across Lake Champlain and take a long scenic drive through Vermont, with a stop at the Ben and Jerry’s factory, among others. From there we would head into New Hampshire and the White Mountain Natitonal Forest, particularly the Franconia Notch area which was supposed to have wonderful waterfalls and hiking. Once we had our fill of New Hampshire the plan was to head east to Bar Harbor, Maine, where Meg went to college. After a day or two of camping or hiking or boating or whatever else caught our fancy in Maine we would start to slowly wind our way down the coast back home.
Most of it was wide open. But the one thing we knew was that we wanted to start with a nice night at a bed and breakfast –someplace wonderfully decadent and relaxing where we could spend a beautiful relaxing night and let all the stress of the wedding and all the planning slip away. The perfect way, we thought to end the whole wedding process and kick off our honeymoon.
What’s that line about best laid plans…?
So, we had a reservation at a place called The Ivory Creek Inn, in Hadley Mass. From the website and all we read, it sounded perfect for what we wanted, and close to the fair that we wanted to get to the next day. We arrived about 6, and it was everything we’d hoped. The husband of the couple that owned the place, Todd, greeted us, at the door and showed us to our room, while telling us about how he and his wife, who had 11 children, had build the large house so they could have a place for the whole family to come home to at holiday time. They rented out the rooms when family wasn’t around to pay for it all, and cooked the meals out of their own kitchen. The result was very cozy feeling, and we looked forward to a lovely night.
After relaxing for a while we decided to head into the nearby town for dinner. We had a nice meal and a pleasant drive home, but as we neared the last turn we saw flashing lights.
This was when the fun really began.
It turned out there was a bad accident up ahead, and the road was blocked off. We then set off on a quest to try and find some other route to our B&B, but between the cop giving us bad directions, being far back in the woods with very few roads that went where we needed to, and our GPS not understanding that we needed to find some other way, we kept winding up back at the same spot. After more then 90 minutes of this we finally got directions to another route, all the way on the other side of the river that the B&B was next to. So we went through three different towns, looped around a few hills, found our way to the right road--- and came to a sign that said the road was blocked, as the bridge had been washed out.
As this point we were both at that point of either laughing or crying, and I started looking around for the camera, convinced we were on some reality show for newlyweds that someone had signed us up for without telling us. We debated our options, but since we were at least 30 minutes from the original spot where we’d been cut off, and the cop had said the road might be blocked till dawn anyway, going all the back seemed pointless. Instead we just decided to surrender to the absurdity of it all, and find a room at the nearest, cheapest motel. Having been earlier thwarted, here our trust GPS could shine, and it quickly led us to the local econolodge. The flashing sign advertised a honeymoon room with Jacuzzi, and I figured the honeymoon suite at an econolodge had to worth checking out, but sadly it was unavaible, so we checked in to a basic room, got ourselves into bed and collapsed. We spent a few moments wondering if we’d get our money back from the B&B, not to mention what they would think if they found our room in the morning, bed unslept in with all our bags scattered about, and with that, we went to sleep.
Now I imagine you all are getting sick of hearing, “it could have been a disaster, but Meg and I found a way to laugh about it, and that’s how I know we’ll be a good married couple” stories, and hopefully this will be the last, but it’s the only way I can describe that night. Especially because, it all wound up working wonderfully. In the morning we drove back to the B&B, explained what happened, and they immediately told us that of course they wouldn’t charge us for the night, but they still insisted we stay for breakfast. And the breakfast was amazing! Home cooked, just as we’d hoped when we first had the B&B idea, French toast and country ham and fresh fruit, and all of it wonderful. We chatted with the couple who own the place throughout breakfast; she’s still a practicing bio-chemist and he’s a retired rocket scientist, and we talked about that, about my and Meg’s work, about how the B&B gets lots of people on parent’s weekend at the nearby schools, about how Judy, Todd’s wife, developed a love of elephants when she was a kid from reading Babar, and that’s why there are elephants scattered everywhere throughout the place. It was a lovely morning, and we told them we would definitely be back sometime soon. We packed up our bags, left some money in the room to say thank you, and hit the road for the fair.
