Strom Travel Diaries

Day 6 – Thursday, October 20

For our first day in Boston, we were actually leaving Boston—in fact, the entire state of Massachusetts—completely. We got up at about 6:15 and got ready for a day of leaf-peeping. Our tour guide and driver, Bobby, was scheduled to pick us up at about 7:15, so we went downstairs and got a quick breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Bobby was prompt and we joined the rest of the tour group on the minibus. Apparently, we were the final stop and Bobby quickly had us heading out of town. Our general destination was White Mountain State Park in New Hampshire.

On the way, we stopped at a very nice rest area (who knew rest areas could be very nice?) in New Hampshire that had a restaurant, coffee shop, restrooms, gas station, and…drumroll, please…an apple cider donut shack! Mom got one of the donuts to try, which was an excellent decision. Stop done, we whisked off to the Lincoln area and the start of the Kancamagus Highway. Our first leaf-peeping stop was the Lincoln Woods Trailhead, which has a suspension bridge. None of the stops were very long—just long enough to see the “thing” of interest and admire the changing leaves. After the Lincoln Woods Trailhead came the Sabbaday Falls Observation Site and the Rocky Gorge Scenic Area. At one point, we had to stop and let three wild turkeys cross the road!

For lunch, we drove to North Conway and parked by the historic rail station. We had a little over an hour to get some nibbles and explore, so Mom and I ate at a café called The Met, where I had a chicken sandwich with pesto, tomato, and mozz, and Mom had a “Thanksgiving” flatbread. Which was surprisingly good. We both got lemonade iced teas, which was another excellent decision.

We had enough time after lunch to wander around about a block of North Conway, so we poked around Zeb’s General Store and walked over to the train station. By that time it was about when we had to go, so we went back to the bus.

After our lunch stop, we went to the Fourth Iron Campground and watched the Conway Scenic Railroad go by. Then we drove over to the Willey House. Ducks fed and photos taken, we got back on the bus to make our way back to Beantown. We had one more stop at the nice rest area, though this time on the other side of the highway, before the final leg of the journey.

We were dropped off at the hotels in reverse order, so Mom and I were dropped off first. This was a very good thing as I was able to finish throwing some stuff in my backpack and head back out to catch the express bus to Waltham. Thursday and Friday nights I stayed there with my friend, Abby, so we could spend some time together.

I successfully caught the bus (though there was some confusion and I nearly took a different bus to a casino) and got to Waltham. The rest of the evening was spent talking and eating delicious Indian food.