With the trunk of the car full to the brim (including cleaning supplies - priorities ;) we said goodbye to our apartment, to our street, and to New York. By the way, notice the traffic at 10 o'clock in the morning, and notice the driver of the car bottom-right - she sums up the rush-hour frustration pretty well hehe. Imagine dealing with that every day.

With the goodbyes done, and after more than 12 months in the planning, we finally hit the road for four months and 15,000 miles of who-knows-what!

And then it started raining hahaha! This turned out to be a massive thunder storm that not only washed the car completely spotless but also had traffic crawling along at barely half the speed limit.

After about ten minutes of that we pulled into a covered bridge, ate some nibbles, and waited the storm out in there hehe. It was a pretty good show.

Anyway, here we have the state of Vermont in a nutshell. It can be best described as a rural countryside of rolling hills, with 75% of it forested and the rest a mix of cute wee farms and little towns dotted here and there. Its largest city of Burlington has a population of just 40,000 so it's quite the breath of fresh air compared to New York. In fact, it is quite literally a breath of fresh air compared to New York. The first thing Kristina said when we got out of the car to stretch our legs is the air feels and smells so clean here, and some folk we got talking to later on happened to make the same comment.

We're camping a mile down the road from the little town of Dorset, buried in the 400,000-acre Green Mountain National Forest, itself buried in the Green Mountains mountain range. Home to just 2,000 people, it is described as Vermont's "most picture-perfect town", and supposedly has two of the state's best and oldest general stores (of which we raided the one on the right).

Just up the road is the Dorset Quarry. First mined in 1785, this is the country's oldest commercial marble quarry (with a lot of that marble ending up in New York). Today it has this big 60-foot deep swimming hole, which on hot summer days is full of people jumping and swimming in it. I guess they don't bother on stormy days.

And this is our accommodation for our first night on the road, in our brand new self-pitching tent! Yup, you just throw that sucker in the air and poof - job done! Getting it back down and into its bag requires a little more effort however ;)

Good thing we got the four-person size, because it only just fits our queen-size mattress hehe. Luxury!

Back on the road for more driving through endless vistas of trees and quaint little New England towns. I certainly couldn't live here without getting bored out of my mind, but it sure is pretty :)

Before leaving Vermont I took us along some unsealed back roads for a while to see what random goodies we could find; highways get a bit monotonous after a while. I've seen books with titles like "50 Best USA Road Trips" and so forth, but I bet these routes don't get a mention in there ;)

Rivers, disused train tracks, farms and fields. Nice :)

Eventually we crossed into the state of New Hampshire, and bloody hell it didn't disappoint! Although I couldn't live round here, I'd never get bored of driving these roads! This is somewhere deep in the 750,000-acre White Moutain National Forest (as opposed to Green Mountain National Forest where we were yesterday), nestled among the White Mountains Region.

And here's our bedroom for the night, complete with river just down the hill there. Not bad!

We're staying in the remote town of Waterville Valley, a resort community centred around its "Town Center" here. We grabbed a pizza for dinner, and sat out here and listened to the local folk who, in a word, are thoroughly "special". The way they walk, the way they talk - it's just different :)

While the country gets its marble from Vermont, it gets its granite from New Hampshire, with much of it in the peaks of the White Mountains here. Useless fact of the day :)

Craft beer - boom!

Foster's: Australia's mouth wash. It's comes from half way round the world, but even so is still only worth $2.99 hehe.

After a cold night in the mountains, we grabbed an early breakfast this morning and thawed out on the river behind our campsite.

And then we hit the road - a narrow and rough one.

This is Tripoli Road, an alternative ten-mile, summer-only route between Waterville Valley where we stayed last night and the nearest Interstate highway. Along its length are little waterfalls and rivers, road-side campers, giant potholes, and bugs - lots of bugs (the kind that feed on humans). It's a fun drive though :)

We made it out of Tripoli Road with all four tires still inflated and (mostly) bite-free thanks to the bug spray, and passed through some more of these little White Mountains towns.

We then started on the stunning 35-mile Kancamagus Highway which winds its way through a scenic and mountainous area of White Mountain National Forest. The drive from one end to the other should take about an hour, but it took us closer to three given the number of stops we made along the way to soak in the scenery.

Here's a case in point! The highway is apparently known for its views of autumn foliage (as is New England in general), and is a popular drive in September and October for so-called "leaf peeping" tourism. I wouldn't mind coming back for a bit of that myself someday, but for now I'll take the summer views :)

Good times!

Another stop we made along the way was the Rocky Gorge Scenic Area here, one of several on the Swift River which is paralleled for its entire length by the Kancamagas Highway (so we saw plenty of it).

The White Mountain National Forest has a whopping 1,200 miles of hiking trails. We followed this one from the gorge for all of about a quarter mile which took us to...

...this! There's no shortage of camera fodder round here for landscape photographers!

According to Google Maps this is Falls Pond, and apart from an elderly couple who appeared to have taken a wrong turn somewhere, Kristina and I had the joint to ourselves.

We eventually emerged from the forest and crossed the state line into Maine - our third state in as many days, and our last before we head up to Canada for while.

Independence Day in the USA today, a public holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence (from the British Empire) on July 4th, 1776. It is considered the birth date of America, and is therefore a big deal to the locals.

After arriving yesterday afternoon, we spent the day in the seaside city of Portland, the largest in the state of Maine with a population of about 65,000. Maine itself is the largest state in New England - larger than the other five states in the region combined. Its coastline is a combination of sandy beaches and craggy sea cliffs, littered with fishing villages and seaside lobster joints (yummy!). Maine apparently has 52 functioning lighthouses, the oldest of which is the Portland Head Light here - a Portland icon.

Here's one of those sandy beaches. Nothing to write home about, but these two like it.

Portland sits in Casco Bay, which is dotted with several large islands connected to the mainland only by ferry, and Fort Gorges here dating back to the American Civil War. The fort is just one of many (mostly now in ruin) that guarded the entrance to the bay once upon a time, including during World War II when a German U-boat was spotted in the bay.

The view of downtown Portland, as seen from South Portland.

This is the Old Port area of downtown, lined with 19th-century brick buildings and cobblestone streets. Old Port is bursting with boutique shopping, cutting-edge cafes and chef-driven restaurants, and a ton of pubs and bars which make this the focal point of the city's nightlife. If you're a foodie (and/or a drunk), you'll like it here :)

After scouring the Old Port, feeding our face on some of local goodies and washing it down with some of the local craft beers, we'd kind of run out of things we wanted to do hehe. With a bit of rain starting to fall, we took shelter in a coffee shop to burn some time and relax until the Independence Day festivities were due to kick off.

The Independence Day party was in the city's East End neighbourhood along the Eastern Promenade. We set up our crappy outdoor chairs, and proceeded to people watch with much bemusement at the locals.

Bang bang bang, happy Fourth of July :)

It was a long day on the road today, but before all of that we were woken early this morning by a big argument going on across the corridor in our hotel hehe. Video here - just another fine example of the locals. Anyway, most of today was spent driving north through the middle of Maine en route to our first destination in Canada. We passed through a couple of really nice little towns...

...but before too long it became hick town after hick town. I mentioned a couple days ago that the locals in these parts are "special". Well they seem to have gotten more special the further north we've gone. Take this lot for example, who walked in while we were eating lunch at a little restaurant in the middle of nowhere. They grunted their orders to the waitress with no "please" or "thank you", then barely said more than two words to each other, instead reading the local newspaper and staring into space. The kid amused himself by sipping his drink from his cup with no straw and no hands, and when he got bored with that he fell asleep on the table. Meanwhile, the family out of shot beside us spent most of their lunch barking at their unruly kids, who took no notice. I get the impression there is so little going on in these parts that there is effectively no need whatsoever to really do anything with your life; no pressure to better yourself. And then they breed and the cycle continues. Simple living at its finest.

Hick towns aside, there were a few scenic points along the way but on the whole Maine didn't live up to what we found in Vermont and New Hampshire.

We eventually reached the Canadian border and crossed in the province of Quebec. Quebec is Canada's largest province, and is the only province with a predominantly French-speaking population.

If you change your mind, it's a simple U-turn back to the USA hehe.

We're now in our first Canadian city of the trip - Quebec City. The city was founded by the French in 1608, but they eventually lost it and the surrounding area to the British after some war in 1759. However, the Brits allowed those who stayed to retain their language and religion leaving much of the culture intact to this day. We're staying in the very touristy Old Quebec neighbourhood in the massive Château Frontenac on the left - seriously! The château is a hotel operated by Fairmont, and is generally recognised as the most photographed hotel in the world, largely for its prominence in the skyline of Quebec City. From camp sites to crappy motels to luxury hotels - we're staying in all of them on this trip! And what's more, we're staying here at a huge discount thanks to Kristina pulling her travel agent strings hehe. We only had time for a quick wander tonight so there'll be plenty more on Quebec tomorrow.

So then, as I mentioned last night, this is our accommodation for our two nights in Quebec City - the Château Frontenac! We've stayed in worse joints ;)

Quebec is home to about half a million native French speakers, with English a widely spoken second language. The city was founded by the French in 1608, but they eventually lost it and the surrounding area to the British after some war in 1759. However, the Brits allowed those who stayed to retain their language and religion leaving much of the culture intact to this day, which was nice of them. It's been a while since we've had to converse in French (not since we lived in Paris) so we're a bit rusty, like we always were hehe. We're staying in the historic Old Quebec neighbourhood, consisting of Upper Town and Lower Town. Upper Town is surrounded by the only fortified city walls remaining in North America north of Mexico (that's the wall on the right, and one of the entrances into Old Quebec).

Old Quebec is full of beautiful old buildings dating back to the 17th century, and really does have an authentic European feel about it. The narrow cobble streets, the plethora of restaurants and cafes, the street performers and artists - it all brought back a lot of memories :)

The only bummer about Old Quebec is that it's full of us tourists, lugging our backpacks and expensive cameras around, and getting in everyone's way. For the most part I'd say the locals probably avoid the place. Regardless, it's a bloody nice area to spend a day!

As for the rest of the city, it looks much like any other American city you care to name, and contains little in the way of tourist attractions.

Tourists - argh! This is the Lower Town area, outside of the city wall and down the cliff side from Upper Town on the St Lawrence River, and full of more souvenir shops and eateries.

A taste of Europe in North America :)

Later we took a ferry across the river to the city of Lévis on the other side to get some dinner, and admire the views back across the river. Upper Town on top, and Lower Town below. Nice! Tomorrow we're back in the car and headed to another very French part of Canada, but not before a trip back to the US border, and one of only a small number of streets in the world where an international border corresponds to the lines running down the middle of the road (making across-the-street neighbours residents of two different countries).