I'm Gonna Be... 500 miles

Day two of our road trip was awesome but it was also our longest. We drove a total 528 miles and we got to take a ferry! A ferry! I must say that it was a first for me but more about that later.
Stop number one of our day was Walden Pond in Concord, MA.
Bucket List Item #14. Check.
I have wanted to go to Walden Pond since I've been seven years old. My librarian friend, Mrs. Haggard, and I were the only ones at story time one day at the library and I had just finished Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson. I had just started the first book in the Boxcar Children series and I was fascinated by living away from people. So I asked Mrs. Haggard a very profound question: "Mrs. Haggard, has anyone really lived like the Boxcar Children or is it something that you just read in books?"
Mrs. Haggard was a quick one. She started telling me the story of Henry David Thoreau who choose to live as simply as possible for a couple of years. He wasn't completely in isolation but he lived alone in this little shack he built next to a place called Walden Pond. He grew his own food and completely lived off the land. He only spent $28 the whole two years he lived at Walden. Suffice it to say, I wanted to be a hermit when I grew up for a while after that. To be honest, I still want to be a hermit when I grow up. I think that is why I'm a researcher where I can be by myself most of the time.
So now that you have the whole back story on buck list item #14, here are some pictures.

Lindsay found "it". We were looking for a way to get to the pond from the parking lot and Lindsay said, "We don't need to go any further. I've found Walden Pond."

No one knows what Nella was doing. My guess was communing with Nature. Or maybe Yoga?

We finally found the real Walden Pond!

Nella likes to take pictures of everything. Must be an Asian thing. But notice Lindsay and her stance. I believe we will be seeing more of this pose as we go along.

Walden Pond. It looks more like Walden Lake to me. All the ponds I'm familiar with are significantly smaller that this.

Isn't it just awesomely beautiful?

I really wanted to go out in a rowboat but alas, there were no rentals to be found. I hypothesize that some person would make a killing if they set up a rental shack close by.

So what do you do when you can't rent a rowboat? You take your shoes off and roll up your pants. If I couldn't row across it, by darn, I was going to at least stand in it.

Me standing in Walden Pond. It was actually warmer than I expected but then again I grew up by a bunch of glacier lakes. There were actually several people swimming. I was so jealous. I wish I had thought to bring my swimsuit.

We also learned on this adventure that I am the best unconscious photo bomber. See me in the background. Didn't even realize they were taking that picture.

The whole gang in front of the pond. Yes, they made me get out. None of them wanted to come in.

I also have a tendency to wander off because I'm easily distracted. I saw a fish jump so I wanted to investigate.

This is how the others found me. Sitting on the wall, looking over the pond. I probably could have sat there all day.

Look!!! I'm a trend setter for the first time ever.

Some awesome joggers agreed to take our picture on the wall after seeing our failed attempts to use the self timer on an incline.

We saw something that piqued our interest... Or at least my interest...

Roomie bonding time? Or roomie photo op? You choose.

Awesome randomness! Yes, that is a bench in the pond. And no, it wasn't put there as a joke. That sucker was cemented in. New goal: Get on the bench without getting wet.

I made it!!! And without getting wet too!!!

I felt pretty awesome. It took a little leg stretching to get from the wall and onto the bench.

I really could have stared at it all day.

If there is a fence, I will most likely sit on it like a farm girl. For my companions, it became a photo op.

Me and the statue of Thoreau at the replica of his shack. Can you just imagine him saying, "Simplify. Simplify."?

Interesting fact: The Thoreau statue is about my height. I wonder if he was that short in real life?

Faith: "Why is he holding his hand like that?"
Nella: "So I can hold it."
Notice the unconscious photo bomber in the background.

I'm not sure if Lindsay wanted Thoreau to catch her or dip her?

Faith decided to piggy back Thoreau. Pretty awesome idea actually. And I unconsciously photo bombed this picture. Again.
Lindsay: I don't think we showed that statue the respect it deserves. I feel as though we violated Thoreau some how.

Walden pond was awesome! But when it comes to Thoreau's writing, I'd rather read his good friend Emerson, who also spent time at Walden. I bought a book of thoughts for everyday by Emerson. Lindsay: "I think you bought the only Emerson book in the whole gift shop."

Our next destination was Maine. We had two motives for going here:

                                         1) To say we've been to Maine
                                         2) So Nella and Faith could have a Maine lobster.

I wasn't prepared for how beautiful the Maine coast line was. I can officially add it to a place I would live.

We crossed the Maine state line on a bridge!

The Welcome to Maine sign. Did anyone know that Maine's state motto is 'the way life should be'? It says so on the bottom of their welcome sign.

I really wanted to go sit in one of those chairs. Maybe one day I will own similar yellow chairs...

The Maine coast line is awesome!!! Look how pretty it is!

I'm not even sure where we were when we found this but it was awesome! Of course, I climbed onto the rock wall to find a way down...

Me and Lindsay made it. It wasn't a hard climb at all.

I think I'm waving to the camera in this picture. Either that or I could be doing the chicken dance. Let's go with waving at the camera...

I'm still going to say waving... and yes I stuck my feet in the water just because I could. And again the water wasn't as cold as I thought it would be.

Part of the York Cliffs in Maine.

A pretty little coastal town.

Boats!!!

We stopped to get seafood for lunch and the place we went to had a 'you get to pick your own lobster' policy. You were given a choice between small, medium, and large and the guy stuck his hand in the lobster tank, pulled one out, and asked if you wanted that one. This is Faith's lobster. Her first response: "Oh, he wants to give me a hug!" I didn't want to suggest that he felt threatened and was trying to make himself look bigger to scare Faith away. But I think that he wanted to eat her too! Too bad the poor little guy lost the battle to the gleaming pot of boiling water. At least, he found a home in Faith's stomach. My chicken fingers were pretty good and they smelled a whole lot better than this little guy cooked.

Our next stop was the state with my favorite license plate ever! Their welcome sign is pretty awesome too!

This was the welcome sign the first time we went through New Hampshire on the way to Maine.

I seriously love their motto!!! "Live Free or Die"!!! Seriously best license plate ever!

New Hampshire was amazing! It was beautiful, there were decent sized mountains, tons of trees, and there were bodies of water everywhere! It's been added to my top ten places of where I want to live.
Actually, when I was in second grade I decided I was going to live in New Hampshire because it had a cool name and was small like me. I drew a route to get there on one of those paper maps Scholastic gave us. I was pretty smart for a second grader.
I'm sorry to say that we got into New Hampshire towards the end of the day so I didn't get to see as much of it as I wanted but what I saw makes me want to go back. For one, there are way too many hikes in White Mountain National Forest that I want to do. And one of these days, I'm going to go pay the money to drive to the top of Mount Washington so I can check that off my bucket list.

Light coming through the clouds onto a lake in New Hampshire.

Welcome to White Mountain National Forest! It was so pretty!

It also had a bunch of windy roads.

Look at the trees turning colors!!!

Hi, Nella!

It was a pretty view!

It was raining most of the time we were in New Hampshire though.

Off on a quick hike to Glen Ellis Falls! And no, I didn't know this picture was being taken either. I had just gone into hiking mode which results in leaving behind two Asian girls taking pictures.

A view of the valley from the trail.

Glen Ellis Falls.

Yes, for some odd reason I wanted to climb down to the closest possible rock to the waterfall. It was a little wet down there. Apparently it took Nella and Faith a few minutes to get me and Lindsay's attention to take this picture.

Nella and Faith close to the waterfall. It's hard to believe that that sucker is around 74 feet tall. And yes, Nella is wearing a dress. Only she would hike in a dress and chucks. Ok, Lindsay hiked in chucks too but not the dress.

Me at another part of the waterfall. Glen Ellis has a bunch of falls that are lined up in a series with pools in between.

I guess I forgot to mention that I hiked in my Teva sandals...

Me and Faith by the smaller falls.

Nella soon joined us...

Lindsay, Faith, and me by the river.

 As you can see by the end of our hike to Glen Ellis Falls it was dark and pouring rain. Sad news was that we had about 200 miles to go to get to our hotel for the night. It was an interesting drive out of White Mountain and into Vermont. I tend to forget how dark the night can get outside of city limits and how few and far between gas stations can get.
We were about thirty miles from the hotel when we realized that we had to use a ferry to cross Lake Champlain to get to our hotel. The problem was that we all were pretty sure that the ferry wouldn't be running at 11pm. I was trying to figure out alternate ways to the hotel as we pulled up to the ticket booth. I knew I could get there; I just didn't know how much driving it would take to do it. Later I found out that everyone else in the car thought that we'd be sleeping in the car that night.
Thankfully the man upstairs was looking down on us because the ferry was still operational. In fact, it was a 24 hour ferry for the next few months until the bridge they were building nearby was complete. The best part: the ferry was free! We drove on to Faith chanting in the back, "We're on a ferry!" over and over again. Sad thing is we were ferried across the smallest part of Lake Champlain (a couple of miles long) between Vermont and New York. It took only seven minutes to get across. From there we made it safely to Ticonderoga, NY where our hotel (which looked like it had been built with Lincoln logs) was located.
It was a long but excitingly eventful day!