RoadSchool

New Hampshire - Vermont
October, 2000

New Hampshire Fall Colors

The fall colors in New England are great! This tree shows how bright many of the reds can be, which we saw everywhere. There are many shades of green, red, yellow, orange and brown all mixed together. On a four hour drive along the highways around Mt. Washington we saw color like this most of the way. Sorry, but as usual, these pictures don't capture the real experience.

Here we are in Berlin. No, it's not Germany. It seems that in the eastern states there is a town by every European name possible. Many of them are preceded by "New" or suffixed with town or burg. Since this picture, we have passed through two more towns named Berlin.

This is the "Old Man of the Mountain." A natural land form that is the symbol on New Hampshire highway signs and license plates. One of these days the whole thing is going to fall off. This event is being postponed by anchors and cables, sealing crack to reduce water and ice forces and careful survey to monitor changes. Most of this activity is performed by a family that has been dedicated to preserving The Old Man for decades.

While in Vermont, we stopped at a maple factory. Here they performed final processing of maple syrup to make some of the finest pancake syrup and maple candies.

Opening day of duck hunting and I think Cocoa wishes she was out chasing a few herself.

We had a great spot to park our RV. This picture was taken one Saturday morning just outside the trailer.

No need to say where we are here. This RV was used on a coast-to-coast advertising promotion. I think their tour was back in the 1980's. We were not allowed to take pictures inside the factory during our tour, (trade secrets or something I guess).

It was interesting to see some pictures and stories about Ben & Jerry's and how they started out in an small ice cream shop. We saw the postcard sent in by a B&J ice cream fan suggesting they make a flavor with cherries and call it Cherry Garcia. They also had several newspaper clippings and other documents describing their battles with Haugen Daas, who tried to force them out of the market by putting pressure on the distributors and retail stores. I guess Haugen Daas's parent company, Pillsbury, had reason to be scared of these little guys.

In our travels we have always found that there is something to learn in cemeteries. The property of the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream factory was no exception.

One Potato, two potato,
Sweet Potato Pie,
No one could appreciate it,
So we had to let it die.

With aching heart & heavy sigh
We bid Rainforest Crunch goodbye.
That nutty brittle from exotic places
Got sticky in between our braces.

ROCK OF THE AGES

The E.L. Smith Quarry covers 50 acres and is 600 feet deep. For a sense of the scale, the red square box in the picture above is the equipment and outhouse seen in the picture on the right. Rock of the Ages was founded in 1885. The granite here is estimated to be 10 miles deep. At today's rate it would take 4500 years to consume all of this granite. However, I don't think we have the technology to go down 5 miles let alone 10. Another interesting fact about granite is that it's surface can be precision polished to produce surface plates and machine bases accurate to 25 millionth of and inch. Such surfaces have many manufacturing and scientific uses. We also noticed many large piles of waste granite that are below grade for use as monuments and buildings. One such smaller pile can seen behind the Rock of Ages sign in the picture on the left above.

For not having an air hose connected Max sure had this jackhammer shaking and chattering.

Mitch climbed onto a section from a roller. We saw a roller this size about twenty feet long used to press paper during the manufacturing process.

Driving around the towns in Vermont, New Hampshire and most of the New England states it is not unusual to see street curbs, house steps, porch bases and buildings made from Granite. In the town of Barre, Vermont just about everything is made of granite.

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