Both Crystal and I got off to a late start on Saturday. It looked like a bit of a rainy morning, and we thought it would be a good day to see our great uncle Preston in Charlottetown.

We set out off to the main highway, keeping an eye out for scenic spots. We stopped at Orwell Cove, about half way there. There were pretty views over fields to the sea.

We turned off again at the town of Stonington, which had another pretty marsh, which looked beautiful with the sun on the yellow grasses. On the other side were more marshes, then the sea beyond, with dark clouds in the background. We walked along a bit, to Kinloch Beach with a small stretch of sand, and enjoyed the dramatic clouds.

A little further along was Stratford, a town just before Charlottetown. We stopped at a place called Phinley’s Diner for lunch, just off the highway. We were expected at Preston’s about 3 or 3.30 I think. He was in a nice looking apartment block about 1km from the centre of Charlottetown. It was lovely to see him after such a long time, and also to meet his wife Mary Alice, whom he’d married just a few years back, while in his 90s. He was 98, and I think not good on his feet – he didn’t get up.

We chatted for quite a while, and got some photos with Crystal, Preston and myself. We left around 5ish, and set out to have a bit of a look around the town. By the waterfront was a park called Confederation Landing, with the fancy looking Convention Centre next door. There was an area right by the water with a number of colourful buildings selling food, and it looked as though there were also clothes and other things for sale, and some of the shops seemed to be on structures that were floating on the water. There didn't look to be much open at that time of the evening on a Saturday.

There was a bit of a marina there too, and on one side a few little huts, which looked to be floating, where you could stay. Out to sea a little way was what looked like a huge oil or gas tanker. At that time there was a scarecrow festival going on, and in quite a few parts of the city, people had made creative scarecrows out of various materials and old clothes.

Here and there were metal sculptures depicting famous people from early in the Island’s history, which were very well done. I think it was in Charlottetown where the federation agreement for Canada was signed, and some some of the figures were probably from that event.

Charlottetown has water around a lot of it, so the sea is never far away. On one side, as it was starting to get dark, we found another lighthouse with the ubiquitous white and red colour scheme. It was very much in need of repair, with a big hole in one side. There was a little beach next to it. It was just perched on the coast in between a couple of houses, in a built up area. A couple of large flocks of birds flew over us, I guess heading for nesting spots somewhere before it got dark. We headed for home as well.

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The weather forecast for the next few days didn't look too promising, but there was some blue sky in the morning. I came down to the kitchen, which was where the stove was, and people tended to sit. There was a pretty scene outside the window, with some sun on trees in the background that were starting to get autumn colour, and red bushes and lawn in the foreground.

For breakfast while I was there, I got cereal, then made toast over the stove, which was delicious. There was a metal tool that you could use to hook onto a round cover on part of the stove top, about the size of a small electric element, then a rack where you put the bread in, and laid it over the opening, while the flames toasted it on one side then the other when you turned it over. It toasted faster depending on how stoked up the stove was. It turned out that they were tea drinkers, and Mickey had a teapot of boiling water on the stove all the time. He would put a tea bag in when I came down, and it brewed nicely. They had Orange Pekoe tea, which had a good taste to it.

Crystal had her own house in Murray River not far away, and drove over around 10, and we set off sightseeing. We planned to see some of the nearby coastline that day. There is a coastal drive along the coast in the area. She drove us in her car, and it was a nice change to be driven after driving so many miles. We started at Point Prim, to the west of Caledonia, on a bit of a peninsula. This was one of many lighthouses we would see in the next few days, like the others, wooden, painted white, with red trim around the light itself.

There was pine forest along the shoreline, pretty much right up to the water, but a lot of trees had been blown down by the hurricane that they’d had the previous year. Crystal pointed out a lot of areas where there was damage throughout our travels on the island, it was sad to see so many areas with trees dead or knocked down.

You could go up the lighthouse, so we paid to go in, and look inside. There were about three small rooms one on top of the other inside, a bedroom, I think a kitchen, and what was perhaps a kind of lounge room, then the room with the light itself. Going up, there were photos of lighthouse keepers and their families from long ago, and quite a good view at the top, across the strait to Nova Scotia, which was often visible along the coast.

It had become fairly cloudy, though sometimes there was dramatic weather, with dark clouds and bits of sunshine, and spots of rain now and then. Coming back along the peninsula, there were some pretty views across reaped fields to the sea, with dark clouds. Both Crystal and I are keen photographers, so we would stop from time to time and take shots of scenic spots. That worked out well, because neither of us minded stopping and spending time snapping scenes!

PEI was not a place for driving fast. A lot of the roads were 80km/h, and I from what I could saw, not even the major highways were more than 90. Of course a lot of people went a good deal faster than that. Out next destination was Wood Island, where the ferry left to go to Nova Scotia. On the way we stopped to take photos of some colourful trees. Autumn was definitely coming to the island, though not fully there yet. We found another tree pulled up by the roots from the hurricane.

Wood Island had another similar looking lighthouse, which was quite short, and looked a bit more like a house than a lighthouse, with a door at the bottom with red trim, and only a second storey window before the light itself. I’m not sure if it was in use. There was also a fairly dilapidated looking building in the same colours nearby. Perhaps that had been the lighthouse keeper’s house. It was very much in need of painting.

There was a bit of a picnic area there, and very red cliffs which I guess were clay, around a couple of metres high, down to the sea. We drove over towards the ferry terminal, and found a beautiful marshy area with yellow grasses and some red bushes. Some rain was coming, and we hot footed it back to the car until it went over. There was a beach not far away, at Northumberland Provincial Park, and we walked along that for nearly an hour.

The sand was fairly red, and there were red clayish looking rocky cliffs at one end. The sun peeped out now and then, which made for some dramatic shots with the reddish sand and quite dark clouds in the background, over Nova Scotia. Crystal liked to collect coloured glass pieces on the beaches that had been smoothed out by the waves and sand, so we kept an eye out for them we walked.

We didn’t get very far along from there, towards Little Sands, when we found a pretty spot looking over what was either a lake or an inlet. It looked like a lake, with a narrow stretch of beach dividing it from the sea. I walked a little way down an embankment with a lot of undergrowth to get closer, and found an old jetty.

From there we made our way a little further east to Cape Bear lighthouse, another pretty spot with with more small red cliffs, a reddish beach at the bottom, and forest here and there. There was a little replica lighthouse near the main lighthouse.

The weather was getting a bit more rainy as we drove to the small town of Murray Harbour, and admired the picturesque inlet with small fishing boats, and some wooden buildings, a common scene around the island. There were what looked like large barrels floating on wooden rafts, which apparently people could hire out and sleep there, floating on the water. I’m not sure if they were tall enough to stand up in. There was a big window at one end of the barrel. It would have been an interesting experience.

On we went to the slightly bigger town of Murray River where Crystal lived, stopping on the way to admire some more autumn colour. We spent a little while looking at the harbour, and a river or inlet going off into the distance. While it rained, she showed me around her house, which was two-storey and quite capacious. There were a couple of large storage areas coming off rooms on the upper storey. She was still in the process of unpacking and settling in.

Across the road was a restaurant, the Millstone Grill, and we had a late lunch around 3.30 or so. We seemed to be the only customers at that time. From there we drove further north about 10-15km, past a swampy area with more beautiful colours, to Montague, which was one of the main towns on the island.

It was about 6pm by this time, and we stopped at the harbour there, to see if there would be any sunset colour reflected on the water. It was pretty cloudy but we got a little bit. Crystal showed me the hardware store there where she worked. It was getting dark by then, and we headed back to Caledonia. I enjoyed seeing signs pointing to different towns or areas that Mum used to talk about when she spoke of her childhood, like Heatherdale, Brooklyn and Glen William.

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I needed to hand the van back, then make it to the Newark airport for a flight to Ontario then to Prince Edward Island, leaving at 11am. It was technically an international flight, going from the US to Canada, and I had to get my luggage in by around 10, so I was aiming to arrive by 9.30. I had pre-arranged with the Escape Campervan people that someone would be there at 8.30, and booked an Uber for 8.45, because they’d said it would be pretty quick to hand the van back.

In the morning, while getting ready, I ran into a man from the south, I forget which state, who was very talkative and friendly, and told me that southerners were more friendly than northerners. He was chewing tobacco the whole time, and every so often turned away and spat out some tobacco juice. I couldn’t talk for long because I was needing to get my flight.

I threw out my remaining rubbish and I checked out of the RV park, making sure to sign out. For some reason they were particular about that. If you didn’t sign out you’d be charged an extra fee which was significant. I went next door to the Escape Campervan place, and parked opposite. There was someone in the office, which was quite small, and I handed back the keys. He had a quick look at the van, then went back in, and brought up my details. He said I’d done 9,500 miles, I think he said it was the second longest trip of anyone handing a van back there. I had bought 10,000 miles, and he was trying to process the refund of the miles I hadn’t used.

The figures weren’t working out, and he had to ring someone to find out what to do. I found out that the reimbursement had also been processed, of the money I’d spent on coolant, repairs and service. I was chomping at the bit a little, with the Uber expected pretty shortly. In the end he said to leave it with him and he would sort it out. I found the Uber driver was having trouble finding me – he had ended up at the RV park, but we found each other before long.

It was a fairly quick drive to that airport. I was glad it was also in Jersey City, not in New York. He told me that it could take three hours to drive to JFK airport, with the horrific traffic, and that Uber drivers were paid only by the miles they drove, not their time, so it was not a popular destination for Uber drivers. He dropped me off, and I checked in with plenty of time to spare. It was one of the best appointed airports I’d seen, so far as the lounges were concerned. Each seat had a charging socket, it looked like they all even had USB-C, whereas in most places you were fortunate if each row of seats had one socket, or there would be one much sought-after power point on a pillar somewhere.

I got used to showing my passport and boarding pass every time I boarded a plane, and sometimes also just to line up to go through security. It was sunny when I left, and I got some good views of New York City and the harbour as we went up. Air Canada are not big on meals. We generally got a tiny packet of pretzels or maybe a couple of small biscuits as snacks, and a drink. We flew over the Great Lakes to get to Toronto, and I tried to spot the column of mist at Niagara Falls as we went that way.

In Toronto we needed to go through customs, and I got to go through the Canadian citizens area, which was probably faster than the non-citizen line, as with the long wait in the non-US line in LA airport. They had a lot of terminals where you scanned your passport, then answered some questions on the screen about whether you had anything to declare, then you were issued a kind of ticket with your answers on it, which you showed to an attendant, then went on to a station where someone had a look at the passport and asked a few questions.

I had about two hours layover, which went quickly once you factored in getting off the plane, going through customs, collecting the luggage, then boarding the next flight. They never moved luggage on automatically to your connecting flight if you were entering a different country. They generally seemed to print all the destinations on your luggage ticket though, and I was able to just take the luggage, follow the signs for people connecting to another flight in Canada, and hand the luggage to someone to check in again. I got some lunch at the airport while waiting for the flight, then boarded again.

We had more views of the Great Lakes going up again. It was fairly cloudy, but I was able to see some scenic views of Prince Edward Island from above as we came in. It was pretty special to be flying into my birthplace again after 39 years. Charlottetown airport is like a country airport, it looked like there were just a couple of gates, and we walked along the tarmac to get on and off the plane. My cousin Crystal had offered to drive in to meet me, which was lovely. It was so nice to meet in person after such a long time.

I had hired a car via a company called Turo, which I was to pick up at the airport. They are rather like AirBnB but for cars, where people can rent out their cars, and they get ratings on the car and their service and the like. Car hire wasn’t cheap in PEI, and Turo wasn’t much cheaper than the car hire, but there weren’t the inevitable restrictions on not driving on dirt roads, which I thought I might be doing, and in fact did. Most of the time I didn’t really need the car as it turned out, because Crystal had taken some days of leave, of which she had only a few, to go around with me. This was so sweet, and I really enjoyed the time we spent together.

Once the plane landed and we could turn off flight mode on our phones, I had made contact with the guy who owned the car, and sent a photo of myself and of my driver’s license as he asked. The car parking at the airport was just a single level car park, with free parking for about half an hour, which was very surprising. We found the car, and I rang him, and he unlocked it remotely. Crystal had suggested we have dinner in Charlottetown, and I followed her to a restaurant called Maid Marion, where she had come quite a bit, and they knew her.

We had a good meal there, and then I went with her nearby where she was looking at a bed head that someone was selling. It was in a garage, and she could just go in and look. We parked, and nobody was home, but we found the garage and looked at it, and she was happy with it. We were able to manoeuvre it into her car, and get it to fit.

After that, I followed her in the dark back to Caledonia, and it was a bit of a thrill to see the Caledonia sign as we came in. We parked and met my uncle Mickey and cousin Caroline, and also I think a cousin of Mickey and his wife who were there. It was a cool evening and he had the wood stove going, the same stove that they’d had when we visited in 1984!

It was nice and warm inside, and lovely to talk with everyone. My room was on the second floor, and I wondered who had slept there in earlier days, perhaps my Mum when she was young, or one of my aunts. It was amazing to be able to stay in the house where Mum had grown up, and see it again. They were planning to sell it eventually, so I was glad to see it before it was sold.

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The day dawned with a lovely sunrise. One of the things I had wanted to do was to see the city from above, and there were three places you could do that. I had already ruled out the Rockefeller Centre. I think the Empire State Building was a bit booked out too, but there was a third option, the Edge, with an outside viewing area 100 storeys up, and it wasn’t booked out, so I booked for something like 10.15. I brought along a power bank this time, so that my phone wouldn’t run out of battery.

It was quite close to the terminal of the ferry I’d taken the previous day, so I took the ferry again, and made my way there. The building had shopping areas on the bottom, and I had a bit of trouble finding where to go to get to the lookout. I found it eventually, and there was a pretty long line up to get in, even with tickets. I was hoping that I wouldn’t miss out by getting to the front of the line too long after the time on my ticket. Someone next to me in the queue offered to hold my place while I went to the front and asked, and I found out it wasn’t a problem.

It was something like a 25 minute wait, after which we walked along an interestingly lit passageway with information about the area, and then up 100 floors in the lift, which exited onto the indoor part of the viewing area, with windows all around.

The views from there were pretty impressive, along the Hudson River, which it was close to, and over the city – I got a good idea of just how big the CBD was! The outdoor area had high glass walls all around. As I walked around, I saw someone lying on a part of the floor, and I realised it was actually clear, and you could stand there and look down 100 floors beneath your feet!

It was a beautiful sunny morning, and the views were great! Inside there was an area with (I think fake) autumn leaves and foliage, and some pumpkins, where people were getting photos. It was about the only autumn colour in the New York area at the time I think! There were a profusion of pumpkins around everywhere during the time around Halloween and Thanksgiving. After about half an hour I’d seen my fill and went back down again.

Outside this building was a curious structure, with seven oddly-shaped rings, each probably a storey or more above the next one. I was able to get into the bottom part, but you couldn’t climb up any further. Apparently at some stage people could, but I gather they had issues with people committing suicide by jumping off.

There was a raised walkway with a lot of plants on it, that used to be a railway, which people could walk along. There was an entrance to it near this building, and I walked a little way, but then it was blocked off. I think they were working on some parts of it. I was at a bit of a loose end at this point. I’d ticked off most of the things I wanted to do. I’d been thinking of visiting the 9/11 memorial and thought Wall Street might also be worth a look, as it was near there.

I took the subway again down to the south of the island, and paid my respects at the memorial. It’s a sobering thought looking at all the names, to consider how many people died there.

I had a bit of a job finding Wall Street, even with Google Maps, but I tracked it down, and had a walk along it. It was actually a bit of an anticlimax. It looked quite ordinary, and even the Stock Exchange, though it was an impressive building, was very quiet. You couldn’t go in as far as I could see, and nobody was coming or going.

The way the streets were laid out made for a curious building that was very narrow at the front, as two streets intersected at a sharp angle, and I saw a church peeking out from between the tall buildings. It was around 1 by this time, and I went by a place selling pizza, and had a good lunch. Afterwards I thought I’d have a look at Staten Island, with the free ferry. I walked down to the point nearby where the ferry terminal was, and got there just as masses of people were piling onto the ferry.

The ferry was bright orange, and quite large. There were no tickets, so people all just walked on in large numbers. The ferries left pretty regularly, something like every 20 minutes or half an hour. It was nice trip across to the island, taking about 25 minutes, and going near the Statue of Liberty again. I’d spotted gardens that were about 3.5km from the terminal, the Snug Harbor Cultural and Botanic Gardens. It was about a 40 minute fast walk there, along a road near the coast.

Staten Island, or at least the part where I was, was much quieter than Manhattan Island – not a lot of traffic, no horns honking, few sirens. There was a bit of a plaza around the ferry terminal with some shops, then a footpath along the road near the coast. It went by what had been some kind of large complex, but was fenced off, and abandoned looking.

Further on there was an industrial looking area, and across the river, in Jersey City, lots of industrial tanks and things. There were some pretty spots by the water along a small road closer to the waterfront. Along the way I stopped at a service station and bought something to drink. I was always having to make sure I looked the right way before crossing the road!

I reached the gardens, and started to look around. There was a museum but I didn’t go in because I was still consuming what I’d bought from the service station. The gardens were pretty and peaceful, if not spectacular. There were squirrels everywhere, and it was fun to watch them galloping around with their long bushy tails behind them, sometimes as long as their body.

Some of the attractions were closed, like the Chinese Garden, but there were still flowers blooming in some places, and it was a beautiful warm sunny afternoon to relax there and walk through everything. There was an area with a rectangular pond and fountain, and quite a few buildings around, which perhaps were for functions or exhibits that were open at some point.

I walked along through less structured areas, with a track by a rather overgrown lake, through a tunnel of trees. Coming back toward the entrance, there were a number of quaint looking, rather ornate small brick cottages. I think maybe people lived in some of them, or had small businesses there.

The road exited through an arch in a pretty little building that looked like a guard house, and I hiked the 40 odd minutes back. I found that there was a ferry (not free!) leaving from a similar place to the Staten Island one I’d come on, which went to a spot on the river on the New York side pretty much opposite Paulus Hook, then a ferry from there took me across the river.

I hadn’t wanted to linger while it got too dark the previous day because of my phone being dead, and not wanting to get lost, but this evening I stayed for quite a while, watching the New York skyline across the water and the light slowly fading, while the buildings lit up. I sat for a while by steps near the Colgate Clock, as a couple of girls practiced kicking a soccer ball around, until one of them fielded a phone call for quite a while, leaving the other one at a bit of a loose end.

It was a peaceful spot, and a nice end to my explorations of New York City, a place I was glad I saw, and I enjoyed the visit, but wasn’t left with a great deal of desire to see it again. I was around an hour by the water there, before I started back. I was very glad to have my phone working this time, because (being the poor navigator that I am), I managed to get onto a different street, and had to use Google Maps to work out where I was meant to be. I walked past the marina, pretty with the lights reflecting in the water, and got to the RV park a bit after seven, and it was fairly dark by then.

I wasn’t sure how much the fridge would have used up the battery – I was pretty impressed by how long it went without the van running, but it had been over two days, so I drove around the RV park a little bit just to make sure the battery was still ok, and to charge it a little. I had gathered that the fridge cut out if the battery got too low, but I didn’t want to risk having a flat battery when I needed to leave. I had dinner, and finished up everything I could, in preparation for handing the van back the next day, and got things as packed and ready as possible so that I could make a quick getaway.

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I had wanted to do a cruise around Manhattan Island, and this day looked like a good choice. I had booked the cruise online with Circle Line cruises the night before. At the RV park reception they had mentioned a ferry to get across to the island, and I looked on Google to see how to get there by ferry, and found one going from a place called Paulus Hook (what strange names they have sometimes!) which was about 10 minutes walk away.

I set off, back up towards the train station, then off in a different direction, along a street with four-storey brick terraces, all joined together, and stairs going about half a storey up to the front door. It looked like the set they had on Sesame Street where people would sit on the steps sometimes. I’m not sure if they were apartments, I guess they were, as they would be pretty big for townhouses. Perhaps at some point they were part of a less affluent neighbourhood, but they seemed now to be pretty upmarket, with gardens planted in the small areas between the houses and the footpath.

I got to the ferry terminal and got a ticket for the ferry to a pier on the west side of Manhattan Island, not far from where the cruise started. It was fairly cloudy to start with, and I wondered what kind of scenery I would see, but it cleared up as the morning progressed. We were picked up by a small ferry which didn’t actually tie up anywhere – it just kind of nudged up to the dock and then ran the motors hard while people got on and off, keeping it jammed up against the dock, then backed out and went on. It was quite a nimble and quick seeming vessel – rather fitting in with the feeling of New York I thought.

The ferry trip was pretty scenic, going along the Hudson River with views of the city both sides. It first stopped part way along, on the Jersey City side to pick up more people at a spot called Hoboken with a fancy kind of front to it, and some boats parked in alcoves. From there we went across the Hudson and disembarked. We were right above a tunnel that went under the Hudson, the Lincoln Tunnel, not the one I’d taken, though you couldn’t see anything of it from there. There are a lot of piers on that side, each numbered. This was Pier 80 or something like that, and the cruise was from Pier 82, just a little way further along.

It was interesting to see the Manhattan Island waterfront in more detail. There were buildings on many of the piers, and going along the length of that area was the road I had driven in on, but hadn’t had much time to look around. I was fairly early for the cruise, and made my way to the place. I had bought the option for premier seating, which I gathered meant you had access to some reserved seats on the upper storey of the boat. It turned out not to be very helpful, because the reserved seating was indoors, and I wanted to be outdoors. There were already quite a lot of people on the boat, but I was able to get a seat by the edge, though it was near the enclosed area, so not quite a full view. There didn't seem to be many edge seats left, and I didn’t dare leave the seat I'd got before the boat started, in fear of losing it.

The cruise started at 10, and we had a man with a very authentic sounding New York accent telling us all sorts of interesting things about the buildings and their history as we went by, as well as the piers and bridges. We saw the Empire State Building from a distance, and other unusual buildings like a couple that looked as though they were built on an angle, and one which looked as though it had four giant smokestacks on it, but they seemed to have windows all around them, so probably there were rooms inside them.

Further along we passed what I think was a stadium that had been built over the water, which looked as though it was resting on a lot of huge golf tees, and a statue of a head with a hand on the lips indicating silence, that was several storeys high. Given how noisy New York City was, it didn’t seem to be working!

There were some quite fancy looking old buildings as well by the waterfront, as we headed towards the Statue of Liberty. On the way was the Colgate Clock, a huge clock with the Colgate logo on it. It turned out that was near Paulus Hook, where I had taken the ferry in the morning.

We spent a while near the Statue of Liberty, with the boat turning all the way around so that everyone could get a good look. I had considered a cruise to the statue itself, but it seemed like viewing it from here was a great view of it. I wouldn’t have minded going up into the crown of the statue, but you had to book weeks in advance for that from what I could see, and I hadn’t really booked anything beforehand in the New York stay.

From there we kept going around Manhattan Island, passing the ferry to Staten Island, which was free! This was unlike most of my experience in the US, where it seemed like you had to pay for everything. I gather that there was a lot of pressure to keep it free.

There was also an island which had been leased to some organisation for something like $1 a year, but they had to maintain all the buildings on it. The guide spoke about how rubbish was disposed of on Manhattan island – they had nowhere to bury it, so they put it on large barges and sent it to other places, even interstate I think, where it was buried. We passed one of the rubbish barges on the cruise.

We passed under some impressive looking bridges, including Brooklyn Bridge, which I wanted to walk across later. It was quite sunny by this time, as we passed by a building made in the shape of a squared off arch, and another with two huge pillars with a gap in between them (but each pillar was a building in itself) with more built on top of them, and one of the pillars was at an angle, not square.

There were a couple of power stations on the water, I guess it was easy to use the river for cooling. We passed along the Jersey coast, and the guide spoke about Jersey City, and how it had been cheaper than the New York side, but there was a lot of development, and it was getting expensive too.

We kept going, past the UN building, hearing about how the river sometimes got cordoned off when there were dignitaries there. It was a 60s art deco looking building, which looked rather unexciting in comparison with the buildings around it. We went under more bridges, including at least one that was able to open for large ships, and the guide told us how depending on the tides, the boat didn’t always fit under one of the bridges. On we went past Yankee Stadium, and a large cliff with a huge C painted on it, where college students sometimes jumped off into the water.

We entered into a large channel with one side in the distance quite forested. It looked like some kind of reserve or national park, and it was interesting to see such a large area of forested riverbank so close to the city. I had been on the back of the boat on the upper storey for most of the trip, but toward the end I also spent a bit of time in the indoor seating I’d bought access to, and on the front of the boat, where you got quite close to the water, but it got rather chilly up front!

We docked back about 12.30, and I set off to get lunch then head to back across Manhattan Island again. I walked along one of the roads leading back into the centre of the island (it was 3km (a bit under 2 miles) across, so not hard to walk back to the centre, but it was fairly long, and the subway was helpful to get around from one end to the other). I had wanted to have lunch at a deli. A friend in San Francisco had said, somewhat jokingly I think, that the delis were all run by Jewish people and they would be rude to me, but that was all part of the experience. I found a deli on my way and went in there, but it didn’t appear to be run by Jews, nor were they rude to me, so I felt I'd missed out on the experience! The food was good though. It was more of a cafe than our Australian delis would be.

There was a referendum on in Australia, and voting was compulsory, but not if you were overseas. But you could vote early in a few places in the US, including the Australian High Commission in New York, so I thought I would walk across to that building and vote. While I was getting there I passed through Times Square, which was very flashy with lots of huge electronic billboards.

There were a couple of people dressed as the Statue of Liberty and a Ninja Turtle, who I took a photo of, then they asked me if I’d like a photo with them, for “tips”. I didn’t have much change, and they eyed off a $10 note which I gave them. It was an expensive photo. They were pushing for money for each of them, but that was all they got.

I kept navigating along using Google Maps on my phone, and the GPS was struggling to track where I was going. Sometimes I would walk in one direction to see what direction I was facing, and it would look as though I was going one way, but then my location would change and go back the other way, so nagivation was a bit difficult! I guess it was struggling to get a signal because of all the tall buildings.

I passed the Rockerfeller Centre, where you could go up and get a view from high up over the city. There were people lining up, and I asked how long the wait was. Turns out you had to book in advance, and the next time slot was in the evening. I think even the next day it was booked out during the daytime.

So I kept going towards the High Commission, and came on Grand Central Station. I looked inside, and it was grand indeed, with fancy hallways with chandeliers, and a huge central room with a green ceiling painted with outlines of gold figures, and sculptures by the windows. There were a lot of people around. It seemed it was a bit like Flinders Street Station in Melbourne, where you could catch both local and interestate trains, and there were a lot of platforms, and screens with departure times for trains to all sorts of destinations.

I found the High Commission a little further along, and enquired about voting at the desk. The Commission was just one tenant of a large skyscraper, on one of the higher floors. There was a sign where people voting could line up, but I was the only one at that time, which was great. It was about 2.30, which I had suspected might be a good time. The attendant took me in the lift up to the floor where the High Commission was, and there was another spot where it looked like people could line up, but I went straight in after showing my driver’s license. They gave me a Tim Tam for my troubles. It was interesting to hear Australian accents while I was there, I had got so used to American accents.

From there went back to Grand Central Station, which was just up the road, and took the subway to the south end of the island, where Brooklyn Bridge was. I found the entrance to the walkway that went across it, and started over. There were large crowds of people also walking across, and many street vendors along the sides selling tee shirts, trinkets, art, and all kinds of things. As I got a bit further along these stopped – perhaps there was a limit as to how far along the bridge they could go – but there were still people set up to take your photo for $10, right through the middle of the bridge.

It was a bit hard to get good photos, because the walking path was in the middle of the bridge. There were three lanes of traffic on either side, and a lot of pillars and wires. There were a couple of spots where there was a clear view, and I was able to get photos from there.

I ended up on the other side, in a district amusingly called Dumbo. It was starting to get cloudy again, and there were a few drops of rain, but just a small sprinkle. As I walked across I could see the waterfront a long way down – these bridges were quite high, and they went not just over the water, but over quite a bit of the shore too with buildings below, before connecting to the main road network. I worked my way down to the shore – it took a while to take this street then that one, going down until I got there.

I got to see the bridges from below, and started walking towards another bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, that wasn’t too far away, probably less than 1km (1/2 mile). I had hatched a plan to walk back along that bridge, as I could see that the walking path was right on the edge of it rather than in the middle, and I hoped there’d be better views. I found a building on the shore that had some shops and a toilet, and you could go up a few storeys and look down at the river. The upper storeys seemed to be offices.

Then I started the journey up various streets, looking for a way to get onto the Manhattan Bridge. Again the entrance was quite a distance up and inland. While I was finding it, I saw some people taking photos, and when I looked at what they were photographing, I saw a great view of the bridge looking through buildings.

I started across, and found that while the walkway was indeed on the edge of the bridge, there was chain link fence all the way along, presumably so nobody would drop things on unsuspecting people on boats below. But people had helpfully ripped holes in the chain link here and there, where you could poke the camera out and take photos. This was a double-decker bridge, and trains ran extremely loudly next to me as I walked. There were only a few people crossing this bridge, it was clearly much less popular.

As I got over to Manhattan Island again, there was a very run down looking neighbourhood below me, with graffiti on a lot of the buildings, and I was wondering, with some concern, what kind of area I would be deposited into. I reflected that I really didn’t know much about what was safe and not safe in New York. Perhaps there was a reason not many people took this bridge!

I got a look over to Chinatown from the bridge, which gave me some cause to hope that the area the bridge ended in might not be too bad. There were a few people sitting on bikes near the end of the bridge, and I didn’t feel entirely safe, but thank the Lord there were no incidents, and I exited into a better looking neighbourhood, and found a subway station to get to the centre of the island again.

From there I set out to walk the mile (1.5km) again back to Pier 80 to take the ferry back, because it was much more scenic than the subway, though that was right near me. The ferry cost around $10, while the subway would have been about $5, but it was worth the extra money to get a nice view instead of travelling underground.

I had used the phone a lot that day, and the battery was getting pretty low. I needed it to navigate my way around New York City, and find the right trains. I had put it into battery saving mode and turned on flight mode to try and eke out the battery till I got back. I got to the ferry terminal around 5.45 as the sun was getting low, and waited for the next boat while enjoying the river with the late sun on it. The sun was setting as the ferry went back to Paulus Hook a little before 6.30, and it was beautiful to see the sun lighting up the buildings, though I couldn’t get very good photos because I was inside the ferry, and the windows were a bit dirty or steamed up.

Paulus Hook had a beautiful view of the New York City skyline across the river, which was still being lit up by the sunset, a lovely sight. I stayed there for a while as the light faded, and my phone gave up as I took a few last photos, leaving me without a map. Thankfully I found the street that took me back to the main road to the RV park and found my way back ok.

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I left fairly early, around 7.30 or so, headed for the RV park in Jersey City, about four and a half hours away. This involved driving through New York City, which I was a bit nervous about. I was going south, so I didn’t need to go through Boston, and I didn’t have trouble with traffic.

I headed inland on I-93, before getting onto I-95, which was where most of my trip was spent. I entered the small state of Rhode Island, and drove through the capital of Providence. This was the only state I visited that I didn’t set foot in, I just drove through it. The highway went towards the coast, and entered Connecticut. I drove straight through except for a brief stop part way along.

Eventually I entered New York State, leaving the coast and I-95, and got onto Manhattan Island, going across to the Hudson River. The road seemed to go over bridges and through tunnels, and then onto smaller streets. There was a stretch that went along the edge of the river for quite a while. In one place, the lines between the lane I was on, and the next one, disappeared completely. I assumed that lane was going away, and started to get across to merge, and someone tooted me. After a while the lines appeared again. It seems that they had just completely worn away. I’ve never seen that before.

After going a fair way along the river, Google directed me through the Holland Tunnel under the Hudson River to New Jersey. It got a bit quieter on the New Jersey side. I had marked out a service station to fill up the van, not far from the RV park. There was another van parked at a pump on the other side of the lane when I went in, and I just squeezed by, going over the kerb next to the pump a little, to get in. I didn’t want to wander around trying to find another service station. This was my last stop for the RV, and I was keen not to drive in New York and New Jersey more than necessary!

After filling up I drove along an increasingly quiet road down to Liberty Harbor RV park. I was surprised how quiet it was. Monday was a public holiday, at least for some people, and so perhaps that was why traffic hadn’t really been a problem on any of my journey, but that road never seemed to be very busy. I think the New Jersey side was just less busy in general. I checked in, and they gave me some useful information about how to catch the subway into New York, and some information handouts.

The RV park was almost just a large parking lot. The spaces were fairly decent in size, because it was designed for much larger vehicles than mine, but everyone was just parked next to each other, and there was no privacy. But it was a great base to explore New York from, just five minutes from the subway, and most people seemed to stay in their vans rather than outside. Though it was by far the most expensive RV park I’d stayed in, at US$150 a night, even a bed in a shared dormitory in New York City was going for $120 a night, so it was good value.

I wasn’t sure what to see first. I got to New York about 1, and decided to look at Central Park. I found the subway terminal near the RV park. The train ran under the river, and went fairly slowly and a bit uncertainly it seemed. I knew when we were going under the river because there had been two or three stops, then quite a few minutes without any stops, when we went under, then more stops. A few stops later I had to get off, at 42nd street, and change trains. The subway under the river was run by a different company to the one on Manhattan Island, and I think this was the end of the line for that company.

I had bought a card that I could use on the train turnstiles, and put some money on it. I could transfer between trains on Manhattan Island and that service, but I had to pay two fares, one to take the subway from near the RV park, then the subway on Manhattan Island itself. The card worked on both services, but there was no transfer.

I Googled what train to take to get to Central Park. I found the right platform and caught the train with the right number, but the next stop wasn’t what I expected. I got off and realised that the train services had “uptown” and “downtown” routes. Uptown was going north I think, and downtown going south. Google had actually said to take, I think it was the uptown route, but I hadn’t noticed the distinction. Another train came pretty quickly, and I got to the stop at the southernmost end of Central Park.

Exiting up into New York, I was struck by how noisy it was. People were continuously tooting their horns, and there were often sirens. The city seemed to be in permanent gridlock. There were a lot of food trucks at the entrance to the park, and I got a philly cheesesteak for lunch and ate it at the entrance. The day was partly cloudy, with bursts of sun sometimes.

Then off into the park I went. It was quite large, about 2.5 miles (4km) long, though only about 0.6 miles (1km) wide. There were a number of streets intersecting it, but most of them seemed not to have any cars on them. I’m not sure if this was just because it was a public holiday, or if they had permanently closed them to cars. There were people cycling on them, and some horse-drawn stage coach type things going along. There were still traffic lights at the crossings. The crossings at traffic lights in New York had a button to press, as Australian lights do, but I’m not sure if it activated anything. Once pressed, there was a stern voice saying, “Wait!” every so often until it went green.

I have to admit to being a bit underwhelmed by Central Park. The autumn colour really hadn’t started yet, which I found a bit surprising, and there weren't many flowers. There were mainly large ovals, trees, a couple of lakes, and areas for playing sports. It was truly amazing to have an area that size in the middle of Manhattan Island, and I think if I lived in the city I would probably appreciate it a lot, but having been spoiled by the autumn splendour of the Adirondacks, and Butchart Gardens, this left me a bit flat. But it was nice to explore it, which I did for around three or four hours.

There was a large oval where people were eating, with the skyscrapers of New York in the background. Further along I found one of the lakes, which some people were boating on, and a fountain in front. The lake was pretty with the trees surrounding it, and the reflections, with peeks of skyscrapers here and there. There were a lot of deciduous trees everywhere, and I think the park would be a spectacular place when they changed colour.

A bit further along was a lake, with a small castle in the background, called Belvedere Castle. I climbed stairs inside the castle and looked out at the view below.

Further north again were basketball courts, with plenty of people playing on them. There looked to be areas for golf too, and baseball. Towards the northern end was a large lake, called Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. I walked along one side of that, then got to the northernmost section of the park. There were less and less people as I got further along. After a while I came to a stream and small waterfall.

I was looking in vain for a toilet, and eventually found a single one, which seemed to be occupied and stayed occupied for a while, so I moved on. I did eventually find a toilet block. They were not very plentiful. I realised after a while that not having many people around, though peaceful, might be a disadvantage. I was at one spot where there were a few people who looked a bit unsavoury, and one wanted to know if I had a cigarette. I didn’t feel entirely safe there, and was glad to get back to areas with more people around.

I walked across out of the park to a nearby subway stop – there were plenty of them – and went back south to the area where the Empire State Building was. It was interesting to see it towering above. As I walked around the city, one thing I noticed was that there were large heating vents every so often under the footpaths, pumping out warm air. It wasn’t especially cold, but they were going nonetheless. Manhattan Island has a huge steam heating system running through it, so perhaps they were something to do with that.

I took the subway back under the Hudson. The New Jersey station was near a mall, and I got a couple of donuts from Dunkin Donuts for snacks – they had donuts in the colours of the local football teams – then walked back to the RV park around 6.30, a little after sunset. I passed a marina on the way back, which was pretty. The park was close to an inlet off the Hudson River, with a large car park next to it, which I think was for people taking some kind of cruise from there, or for people parking to use the marina. I never noticed it very full. It wasn’t possible to walk very far along the bank of the inlet, so I walked back and set about making dinner, trying to use up the remaining supplies I’d brought.

It was remarkably quiet there at night, especially considering how noisy New York City was, and I slept pretty well. There were tall buildings around, which looked nice lit up at night, and the Statue of Liberty was just visible from some spots.

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We got going fairly early to go to Mary and Charlene’s local church, Fort Square Presbyterian. Mary parked on the street next to the church. Opposite was a little triangular grassy piece of land covered with American flags on poles, with people attending to them. I’m not sure if that was a permanent thing or in honour of something. The pastor had arrived fairly recently, and was getting to know the congregation. He was quite an enthusiastic preacher.

After church Mary made salmon sandwiches and brought some other snacks, and we went to the place we’d spied out the previous day. It was a sunny afternoon, and we went walking there for about half an hour, up to the top of a hill. There was a peek of a view across to the city. We ate our lunch, and did a bit more walking, enjoying the sunny weather. We met a few people coming and going while we were eating.

When we got back to the car, Mary had the idea of going to a lookout at the top of a hill nearby, the Blue Hill Observatory. We all started walking up the hill to the Blue Hills Observatory. It was a bit of a climb, and Mary and Charlene wanted me to go on up without them, as they were going slower, and the observatory might have been closed by the time they got there.

I got up there, and the bottom floor had a little shop where you could pay to to onto the roof and look at the view. I went up through a room with measuring instruments in it, then onto the roof, which had a great view all around. In the distance you could see the buildings of Boston, and a little strip of sea. There was an instrument up there which concentrated the sun onto a strip of paper that was slowly pulled through, leaving a burnt line, and how much it was burnt as it went along told them how much sun there had been. The sun was concentrated through a kind of glass sphere, which was quite expensive, and the guide mentioned that one had been stolen one time.

There was very little autumn colour in the surrounding area, except for one very bright strip, which I think was probably what I had seen the day before, along some kind of river or marsh. I came back down, and rang Mary to see where they were. They hadn’t gone to the top in the end. We were having a bit of trouble finding each other, it was hard to work out where each of us was, but we sorted it out in the end. It was a lovely walk.

I had another look at the beautiful autumn foliage while it was sunny, walking along a small road taking photos, while Mary was driving after me for a few minutes as I got some good shots. They also drove through a very affluent area, where there were enormous houses. I had my usual Bible study at 8.30 with everyone, but this time with Mary and Charlene in person, which was lovely.

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In the morning, we got off to a lateish start. It was a grey, overcast day. Mary was working, and Charlene shouted me breakfast at a cafe which sold a lot of different kinds of pancakes, where she sometimes went. I ordered three pancakes, and bacon and egg, but I wasn’t prepared for the enormous size of the pancakes!

This was the last stop for the van before getting to Jersey City where I would return it, so I had to clear out everything except the bare essentials of what I would need for the three days in the RV park there. So I left the sleeping bag, food I hadn't used and other supplies. Also I had to leave some clothes there, some of which were still in the box that I’d taken to Phoenix, because I would be over my luggage allowance – I had flown over with 28kg, and I was taking a lot of flights from there before I went home, and some at least had only 23kg allowance, so my plan was to post some stuff back to myself.

I swept out as much of the accumulated dust as I could, and threw out some rubbish that had built up. I would be going to New Jersey with just three tins for dinner, some milk and oats for breakfast, 23kg of luggage, and otherwise only what had been issued to me in the van. It took quite a while to get all that done. I was rather sad to be dismantling my nice setup that had served me so well, in preparation for saying goodbye to the van, though it was also nice to look forward to staying in houses too.

Mary got home from work around 4, and drove us to a few scenic spots nearby in an area called the Blue Hills Reservation, including Houghton’s Pond, which was actually a lake, and had a small beach, and was surrounded by trees. After the colour in the Adirondacks, there was very little autumn colour in this area. Different areas seemed to lose their leaves at quite different times. There were a few people fishing in the pond, and a smaller pond with water lilies on it next door.

We visited an area on the reservation where there was a forest, which we thought would be good to go to the next day when there was more time, and hike there. There were small areas that did have beautiful autumn colour, which seemed to be along some kind of marsh. For dinner we went to Chick-Fil-A, a restaurant chain founded by a Christian, which doesn’t open on Sunday. I had been rather wanting to try it out, so it was nice to be able to eat there.

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I had chosen this place to stay overnight partly because it was near to the Kancagamus Highway, which was said to have spectacular autumn colour at this time of year, with many sights and walking trails along its roughly 35 mile (55km) length, between the towns of Lincoln and Conway. The run of sunny weather had come to an end, and it was a cloudy, misty day. The colours were still beautiful though.

It was only 15 minutes to the first stop, Lincoln Woods Trail. I arrived about 7.45, and set off along a footbridge over the Pemigewasset River, which was beautiful with the coloured trees along the sides.

I walked a little way along a trail that ran near the river, though without views of it, where the trees formed a kind of very high tunnel. I hadn’t planned to hike very far along this, so I turned back before long.

About 10 minutes further on was Big Rock Campground, with very striking colour at the entrance, then on I went to several lookouts, or overlooks as they are called in the US.

The road wound up to the highest point, Kancagamus Pass. There were mountains visible in the distance from the overlooks, though the tops were covered in cloud, and hills covered in colourful trees.

The CL Graham Wangan Overlook and Sugar Hill Scenic Vista had particularly lovely colours.

About 8.50 I got to the walk to Sabbaday Falls. Apparently, many moons ago, workmen had been working on the road nearby, near the start of the winter season when no more work was done, and hid their tools there so they could collect them in the spring and wouldn’t have to carry them home. They left them there on and headed back on a Sunday, hence the name Sabbaday Falls.

It was a short walk up the river to the falls, which were quite pretty, pouring down into pools and over rocks, down over several levels, with a quite big drop in the middle. There were steps and observations platforms, and a number of people around, though it wasn’t crowded.

I could see the parking lots were starting to fill up already, though there was still space. It was the Friday before the Columbus Day long weekend, when a lot of traffic would be expected. I had wanted to make sure I was there before the long weekend to avoid as much traffic as possible, and the moody weather probably helped with there being less people too.

I particularly wanted to see Rocky Gorge, which was about 10km further on – the photo I used as my background screen was labelled Rocky Gorge, and I thought it was likely it was this one. I had a hike planned at a spot before the gorge, but drove past it and had a bit of a look at the gorge first in case the car park was full when I came back.

I am still not entirely sure if the gorge was the one pictured on my screen background, but I think it was. I didn’t find a scene that looked completely like the picture, but the area had a lot of the same elements, rocks, river and autumn trees, and I think cloud was hiding the tops of the mountains that were in the photo I had. The gorge was very pretty, along the quite wide Swift River, with trees on either side.

From there I set out to find the spot where the hike was, going to Hedgehog mountain. It turned out not to be so easy to find. I was looking for a signposted turn-off for the mountain, but I didn't see anything mentioning it around where I thought it should be. I stopped at one spot and met another guy who was also looking for the hike. I had seen a map on a billboard at one of the stops which gave me an idea of where it was, and we discussed exactly where it might be, then headed off.

I eventually did find the spot, with a sign that mentioned a different trail, but was also for the one I wanted. It was down a narrow road, to a parking lot which was already nearly full around 10am. I parked the van just outside the parking lot, manoeuvring it to get it on the side of the road out of the way of traffic as much as possible. I met the other guy there who was glad to see I had made it too.

The hike was fairly steep in places, and quite a few people were taking it. There was a stopping place part way up where you could go out on a rock and enjoy the views. Two or three small groups were resting there. The beautiful view looked across a fair sized valley with autumn foliage, to cloud-covered mountains in the distance. It was still quite cool, misty and cloudy.

I kept hiking and got to the summit, to find it clouded in. There was nothing really to see, except cloud. I asked the Lord if He would lift the clouds. After a while there were some breaks in the mist, and I saw vistas of large hills and colourful valleys. The clouds lifted enough to start to see a bit of a distance away, though the far distance was still hidden.

I found another spot near the summit which looked like it would have a good view, and stayed there quite a while, but it didn’t clear much again after that. I headed back down to the van again, it was about two and a half hours for the hike. By this time there were cars parked quite a distance along the road to the car park. I had been thinking of doing a longer hike up a higher mountain, but was glad I hadn’t – there wouldn’t have been much to see there either probably.

From there I went back the other way again, skipping a second look at Rocky Gorge, where the car park was looking pretty crowded, and found a spot where I could pull off the road and take my folding chair down near the river for lunch. I had a look at Lower Falls, only about a mile down the road from Rocky Gorge, with similar views, and quite a few people walking around enjoying the scenery.

A little further along was the Albany Covered Bridge, one of many in New Hampshire. It was a fairly narrow enclosed bridge, dating back to 1858, with the occasional car driving across it (I think to get to a campground on the other side of the river), and quite a few people walking along it.

I figured I should get going after that, as I had a lot of driving left to do. My destination was south of Boston, where I would meet my second cousins Mary and Charlene in person for the first time. New Hampshire is a long narrow state, and I drove through Conway at the other end of the Kancagamus Highway, then down to the coast towards the bottom of the state at Portsmouth. There was a scenic route mentioned, which I gathered was meant to have beautiful rivers and autumn colours. It was quite a dull day, and I didn’t see anything too special driving along it, but then I had been spoiled by incredible autumn scenery that week!

My plan was to drive along a 12 mile (20km) or so stretch of coastline off the main highway, from Portsmouth to the border with Massachusetts. I got to the coastal drive about 5.15, after navigating through Portsmouth itself. It was an interesting drive, but quite muted because a coastal mist had come in, and though sunset wasn’t for another hour or so, it was starting to get a bit darker. There were houses along most of the road, though the northern part was a bit more countrified. As I went south, some areas were very built up, with large paid parking lots by the beach. Clearly this was a very popular area in prime season.

At a little place called Rye along the way, there were some of the most enormous mansions I have ever seen, huge places by the sea, on large areas of land, that must sell for a mint. At the end of the coastal drive I crossed a bridge that could open for boats, and entered Massachusetts, then drove inland to the main highway, I-95 which I stayed on for quite a long while as it got dark.

I drove on the highways through what looked like almost the centre of Boston - I could see the city buildings . Until then the traffic hadn’t been too bad, but as I got south of the city centre I found myself in traffic that was almost stopped, and would inch along every so often. My cousins later told me this was people getting out of the city to Cape Cod, a popular holiday destination south of Boston, for the long weekend. Even at 7.30pm or so, the traffic was terrible.

Eventually I got to my exit, off to Braintree a little south of Boston, and then found that Google told me I had reached my destination when I clearly hadn’t – I was on a main road, and they were on a side street. There was some weirdness in its mapping there, and I turned off another road and found my way to their street. Charlene was there with a torch to guide me into their driveway. It was so lovely to see them! Mary had prepared some dinner, so we ate and chatted, and then headed off to bed.

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My destination for the day was two states across, in New Hampshire. About an hour into the journey is lake Champlain, which is very long, stretching up into Canada in the north, and a fair way down in the south, and there was a ferry crossing it every hour. It is possible to drive around it, but it takes a bit longer, and is not as interesting. I retraced my steps for the first little while after leaving the campground, then headed off towards the lake, aiming to get the 8.30am ferry.

The ferry left from the small town of Essex. I got there a bit after 8, and had a little look around. There were some quite old looking buildings, the town seemed to have a lot of character. I found an ATM sitting next to a small toilet building by the lake, and withdrew some money there. I saw that the balance was quite a bit lower than I was expecting, but found out later that it was a bit of a false alarm. It appeared that the ATM was reporting the remaining balance in US dollars, which was why it was so much lower than I expected!

The ferry wasn’t very large, and had an open area for cars, and a little room above for people, but quite a few people, including myself, stayed on the car deck and walked around as the ferry went. It was pretty going across the lake. It took about half an hour, crossing the border into Vermont half way across the lake.

Vermont was not a state that believed in driving fast apparently. The minor roads were zoned at 50mph or less, as well as even one of the four-lane highways. I got to go at 65 on I-89 for a while, then back to the slower roads again. About 10.30 I took a pit stop near a memorial to a solider who had fallen asleep on guard duty, exhausted but having offered to take the place of another solider, and was sentenced to death, but pardoned by the President at the last minute. All through this area was more and more beautiful autumn foliage, as the road went through the colourful forest.

Vermont isn’t a large state, I think it was only about 35 miles (60km) across where I went, and it didn’t take too long to get across into the next state, New Hampshire, which seemed to have similarly low speed limits. Quite a bit of the last part of the drive was at only 40mph. I stopped a couple of times along there, Lost River Road, to take more photos of the foliage. About 11.30 I came on a scene that looked like one of those classic autumn jigsaw puzzles with a stream surrounded by autumn trees – all it lacked was the old mill with the paddle wheel. I walked down a bit of an embankment to get some closer photos of the river with the trees arching over it.

A bit after 12 I came to the town of Lincoln, where my RV park was, Maple Haven. They had a store which sold ice-cream in the evening, and nice facilities with showers, where they charged $2 for 5 minutes, which you paid for with eight quarters! That night I was glad for the quarters that my friend Ron in San Francisco had given me. I found my site, then headed off again to the hike that I had planned for the day, which was about 10km north on I-93.

The hike was up to Cannon Mountain, which I had read was a popular hike, with limited parking (as usual!). If you stayed at the campground there you could just hike straight from there, but when I tried to book a site there a few months before, though there were sites free, they had a minimum stay of two nights, which was frustrating. I thought I would go before I had lunch and try to find a spot there, and make lunch there if I was able to get a spot, or perhaps eat lunch while waiting for a spot to become available otherwise.

I drove off on the interstate, actually zoned at 70mph briefly, then down to 55, then 45, as it went from four lanes to two, but still stayed as a divided road where you couldn’t turn off except at exits. It was the inconvenience of a four-lane highway, without the convenience of actually having four lanes, a strange arrangement.

It was made worse by the fact that the car park for this hike had its own exit, but you could only get in and out of it on the northbound side of the highway. If it was full, you had to go on north for about 10km or so to where there was an exit on both sides of the highway and you could go back the other way. There was a campground on the opposite side to the parking lot, where there was a bit of parking, but similarly, it could be accessed only from the southbound side. So if that was full and you wanted to check the other one again, you had to travel several km south to an exit where you could go back the other way!

As I drove north to the car park I was praying for a spot to be available, wondering how full it would be on a weekday at midday. Turned out it the answer was very full! It looked as though there were no spots available. The entry was in the middle of the park, with a lane each way with parking on it. On the left there was a car stopped in the lane towards the end. I assumed they were waiting for a spot to become available, and waited behind them for a few minutes, but nobody was coming or going.

The lane wasn’t very wide so I went past the car to see if there was a place to do a U-turn at the end, and to my surprise, there was a free space just a few cars further on! I don’t know why the car was waiting, whether they didn’t notice the free space, or if they were waiting for someone or sending a message on the phone or something, but I was very glad to find the spot – thank you Lord! They waited for a few more minutes then left I think. I hadn’t had lunch yet, so I made and ate lunch in the parking lot, before getting going on the hike, a bit before one. There were very few cars coming or going, if any – everyone was out hiking. The hike was listed as about four hours, though with all the looking around and photo taking, I was about five hours.

The hike was on the other side of the highway, and there was a tunnel from the car park under the highway, to the campground on the other side where I had wanted to stay, but the Lord worked it out in the end anyway. There weren’t any free parking spaces in the day-use car park on that side either as far as I could see, as I walked through to the start of the hike. I read that someone had once actually booked a campsite even though just staying for the day, just to be able to get parking to go on the hike.

A fair bit of the trail was a loop. On one side of this loop the trail climbed up to Lonesome Lake, a small but quite pretty lake. I walked along one side, with some rather marshy bits with grasses growing in the lake. There were boards to walk on over some of that area. Then the trail climbed again through forest, a long, rocky and steep climb. I met a couple with a dog, who had walked a long way, found there was a ladder on the other side of the loop, and had to come back. The ladder, I found later, was quite a way down again from the summit, so they must have had an exhausting hike going back up, then down again.

A bit before three I came out to the summit, where there was a lookout you could climb. There were amazing views from there, again miles and miles of mountains. High up there were pine forests, and in the valley, a beautiful orange and red and carpet of trees seen from the distance. In one of the valleys you could see I-93 winding through for a long distance. Looking another way were rows and rows of blue mountains, getting progressively fainter. Looking north, apparently some of the territory was into Canada. It was quite warm, I was in shorts, and it was mostly sunny, with some cloud coming and going. I took a photo or two for people, and someone took my photo up there.

I found that there was actually also a cable car going up to the summit, so I could have taken the easy way, though it was more satisfying to hike it, and also I got some extra views. But, unlike the other hikes, there was a cafe at the top, which was a bit of a luxury. It was a few minutes walk from the lookout to the cafe, with some nice views along the way. The cafe was also the terminal for the cable car.

There hadn’t been many people on the hike, but there were quite a few on the summit. It wasn’t really crowded though. At the cafe saw they sold whoopee pies, which I remembered Mum used to make – chocolate buns with some kind of white icing in between. I’d long forgotten about them. They tasted just like Mum’s did. I don’t think I had ever seen them sold in Australia.

I sat down on one of the tables to eat it, and someone asked me to take a photo of a group of people, so I had to put down my pie and take the photo, then resume. I went back to the lookout for another viewing – it was just so amazingly beautiful, then started on my way back down again. I took the other part of the loop, and found the ladder, only a few metres long, going down a sheer rock face. I reflected on whether the couple could have got the dog down somehow. It must have felt so near but so far. I walked down through more pine or spruce forest, and some of the forest floor was covered in a kind of thick ground cover.

Part way down there was another view point, looking out over the orange and red valley, with what I think was Lonesome Lake a long way down. I could see the exit off the highway where the parking lot was, even further down, and the highway winding through the forest and mountains, till everything faded away into the distance. The valley was perhaps even more beautiful up a bit closer. I stayed there a while taking a huge number of photos! There was an increasing amount of cloud cover, but still some good sunny periods. I got down to the campground again a bit before 6, crossing a beautiful stream with more colour everywhere.

Crossing under the road again I was back at the car park and headed on north on the highway till I could turn and go back the other way to the RV park. I made some dinner, and then went to the store looking for some ice-cream. I think they had said they closed at 9, and I arrived before then, but the ice-cream part had closed earlier, so I missed out. So I had my $2 shower and went to bed.

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