Harry Travels: From Vermont to Dr. Seuss

Aug. 14-19

If you don’t fish, or sail, or go hiking, there’s not much to do in Maine.

Wednesday, our second day in Augusta, we drove to Water Street, a couple of miles from the Quality Inn, where we were able to take a walk in Halliwell. I don’t know if that’s officially a separate town or a section of Augusta.

It’s much like St. Andrews in New Brunswick: a few blocks of upscale bars, restaurants, antique stores. Lots of very happy colors and quite a pleasant place to take a stroll. The water that Water Street refers to is the Kennebec River.

It was an enjoyable visit, but it was also deja vu.

We stopped a restaurant and had a salad and a sandwich. We commented on the quality of the bread, a chewy multigrain that made us feel very virtuous indeed.

We actually wound up going back to the same Texas Roadhouse for dinner. We simply couldn’t find anywhere else that looked even remotely as entertaining.

Whoever inhabits the armadillo suit may have had the night off. At least, I didn’t see anything like that prowling around. There was a bit of line dancing, though.

Thursday we set out for Coventry, Vermont, to visit Joanna’s sister Philomena and her family on their farm.

When you drive anywhere up here, you see hills, often with windmills on them. Also lots of trees.

Once in a while the trees break for a farm or a small town. Then you see more trees.

We stopped for lunch near Bethel, Maine, at the Sunday River Brewing Co. on U.S. Highway 2.

We still had a long way to go, so I didn’t get to try any of the beers. We shared a salad and a lobster roll. The roll is a popular sandwich in Maine. It’s made of chunks of lobster meat in something like a grilled hot dog bun.

We had tried a version few days earlier, at a roadside stand not far from the Acadia park. the guy insisted on dressing it with mayonnaise, and warm mayonnaise is always borderline awful.

We asked and learned that this one came with melted butter. It’s still not my favorite way to eat lobster. The bread tastes like a supermarket hot dog roll. But the butter is a hell of a lot better than the mayo.

We made a brief stop in Gorham, New Hampshire, to stretch a little and to pick up New Hampshire road maps. They were setting up for some kind of market in the park next to the information center, but we didn’t stay to investigate.

We got to the farm in Coventry in the afternoon. Jeff was working from home for the day.

Jeff is the sixth generation of his family to own the farm. The property was deeded sometime in the early 1800s to an ancestor for service in the Continental Army during the American Revolution.

It includes two houses.

The larger one, where Jeff, Philomena, and their son, Ian, live, is a huge 19th century farmhouse that was operated as a country inn by the previous owner, Jeff’s Uncle Jack.

Next door, on the other side of the barn, is the original house, known because of the color of its shingles as the Brown House. It has been expanded, but the earliest part of it was built somewhere around 1807 or ’08.

Jeff’s brother, Dave, lives there when he’s not in Florida.

Joanna got a chance to catch up with her sister. They took off to go shopping a couple of times over the weekend.

I got to relax, drink a few beers with Jeff and Dave, and take a break from driving.

We ate London broil off Jeff’s grill, Thai food a few miles away at Dusit in the town of Newport, and best of all, schnitzel at the Derby Line Village Inn, which sits just about on top of the 45th Parallel. It’s almost at the Canadian border.

They had Singha at the Thai restaurant, but I opted for a local brew, Long Trail Ale, to go with my yellow curry. I love Thai curry, and this was a good one, almost like having breakfast in Bangkok.

Newport is on the southern end of Lake Memphramagog. After dinner, Jeff drove us down to the pier for a look. Most of the lake is in Canada, and when we got there, a U.S. Customs officer was checking out a family that had just boated across from Quebec.

I think they were legals, though, because he let them go into town.

That was Friday.

Saturday we went to Derby Line. Jagerschnitzel is a fried cutlet, in this case pork, with a sauce made with mushrooms, cream, and wine. It was delicious.

I tried two German whites, Gruner Veltliner, which was the special of the day, and a Riesling. They were both good and a bit sharp, with a bite similar to the one you can get from many Chiantis.

I don’t drink a lot of white wine, except for Rhones and lately some sauvignon blanc. So the sharpness was a surprise.

Sunday we started south toward home.

On the way out of town, we stopped to explore a covered bridge. It is a replica replacing an original that burned maybe 20 or 30 years ago.

It appears to be rebuilt using dowels instead of metal fasteners to keep it authentic. Even if the dowels are only wooden plugs covering steel bolts or nails, it’s still a nice touch.

We had kept our options open and had talked about going to Quebec City or Montreal, but decided we were getting tired.

Besides, Joanna had gone to the garden center with Philomena and bought a couple of potted plants. Phil gave her a couple of plants more from her yard.

Plants don’t travel well, so we decided to take them back to Joanna’s house.

It’s a six- or seven-hour drive from Coventry to Montclair. I can do that, and in the old days used to do much more than that in a stretch. But I just don’t enjoy marathon drives anymore.

We broke up the ride with a stop in Springfield, Massachusetts. I was able to put us into a Holiday Inn Express downtown, only a couple of blocks from the Dr. Seuss Memorial Sculpture Garden.

I had to see that. He’s one of my favorite writers.

The hotel is less than a mile off Interstate 91, so it was easy to find. And unusual for a city hotel, it had plenty of free parking.

I had booked us to stay on points, so I was feeling pretty competent. Until I discovered that I had booked us for Monday, not Sunday.

The sculpture garden is in an area known as the Quadrangle. which is surrounded by several museums.

It has large bronze groups including Horton, Sam I Am, and the Cat in the Hat, as well as Theodore Seuss Geisel himself in a thoughtful pose at his desk with one foot up.

The route to get there passes another Springfield landmark, a bronze known as the Puritan, created by Augustus Saint Gaudens. It represents Dean Samuel Chapin, one of the founders of the city. He’s standing on a pedestal in his cape and square-toed shoes and looking with appropriate disapproval at something.