Roadtrip from NH to MT - Day 1
Ann, Bob and Jack in our driveway, ready to go to Montana!
"It will be fun", he said... "It will be an adventure", he said.... Truth be told, a part of me believed him. Truth be told, the only reason we are driving is that he wanted to bring our dog to Montana. And he did not want to put our dog in the cargo hold of a plane. Now ME, he would stuff in the cargo hold in a split second, but not his baby, Jack the dog... so after some convincing, I agreed. I don't really mind driving. Yes, my hips are bad, and the first few steps getting out of the car after several hours driving is not pretty to watch. But I'm tough, I can walk it off, and I am pretty good at looking out the window at lovely scenery and day-dreaming for hours. So eventually I said yes. It will be fun, an adventure. #montanaorbust.
We leave Peterborough, NH Wednesday morning at 9:30am. The car was packed the night before. The house-sitter arrives at 8:00am. The man also does repair/construction work around the house, so we have a list of jobs for him to do while we are gone. Before you know it we are driving. That went surprisingly smooth. So far, so good.
We drive about 10 miles or so to Dublin, NH, make a quick stop for gas and then get back on our way. Suddenly, the navigation system on our new car locks up. Really? Stuck. The car symbol is not moving, the clock is not advancing, nothing. Nada. If ever we needed a nav system, it is today!!! This week!! So we pull over to fiddle with it. For those who have not done a cross-country trip, every time you pull over is precious time you are not moving forward. Bad. We screw around with the touch screen and then finally shut off the car, wait a minute or two, and then restart. It works. Time to move!
Oh happy day! It is sunny, the trees are frosted in yesterday's snow. It is a winter wonderland. We exit NH into the lovely state of VT. Southern VT. can be very hilly, and phone/radio reception is notoriously bad. Back in the day when we'd go to Vermont on ski trips, we called it "casette-land". With good reason. It is the Green Mountains, after all. Today, there is snow on the road, it is hilly, and there is light traffic. We are somewhere between Wilmington and Bennington, VT. Clouds form. The windshield gets yucky. We turn on the windshield wipers and hit the fluid button. Nothing. The blades move, but no fluid. We hear the motor, but again, no fluid. It is hard to see. It had worked earlier, but not now.
We determine that the washer fluid is frozen, since it is 11 degrees with a major windchill. We are assuming, since the new car came from Florida, that they did not fill it with washer fluid with antifreeze. What to do? We stop at a gas station, wash the windshield, and drip some of the yucky dirty liquid from the squeegy bin onto the sprayers. We also buy some washer fluid with antifreeze and top off the reservoir. There is not much to top off. We do it anyway, and spray the crap out of the windshield. It works. Time to press on!
Bob topping off the windshield washer fluid for the second time... but not the last.
We make it another hour before the windshield washer sprayers freeze again. We stop at another gas station. Where, I do not know. We go through the same motions. I suggest that next stop, when we need gas, we go through a car wash, unfreeze the sprayers, and then spray the windshield for 10 minutes straight until we empty the reservoir enough to fill it up with enough antifreeze solution to keep it from freezing again. Bob grudgingly agrees that I might have a good idea. When we stop for gas, we will wash the car, since it is pretty grubby from the VT. crossing. There is a plan.
We top off the gas tank at a Sunoco off the highway right outside Binghampton, NY. The 1/2 tank of gas gets us a free touchless car wash. Great! We get in line, and while we patienly wait for the car in front of us to finish, I take Jack out for a walk and to pee. He pees for a good 5 minutes. No lie. This dog has a bladder like none other.
It's our turn for the car wash! Jack and I get in the car, we go into the tunnel, and it begins. The wand-like arm comes around the left hand side of the car from the rear, comes across the front and gets hooked on our license plate. It stops, then retreats, bouncing across the hood of the new car all the way. Bob swears profusely. For a long time. His face gets red. We back up. The car wash flashes red X's at us. The door opens. We've been ejected from a car wash. We go forward and exit the tunnel with 1/2 of our car covered in soap.
He inspects the car, swearing profusely still, and besides the soap, everything else is ok. Surprisingly, he goes back around for round 2. He enters the free code and it will not accept it since it has "already been used". So we pay for a car wash that may attack our new vehicle and hope for the best. It works. We are ok. Back on the road. If you're counting, we've stopped five times already. Not good. Luckily, we planned a light day for day one, anticipating a late start and a dog who hates the car. Good thing. Onto our final stop for the night: The Lodge at Glendorn, Bradford, PA.
Passing through the gates at the Lodge at Glendorn, Bradford, PA. A sportsman's paradise!
We pull into the Lodge at Glendorn at 6:30pm and are greeted by a lovely young woman waiting out in the snow for us. The property is a member of Relais and Chateaux, a consortium of high end boutique hotels and resorts. We treated ourselves a bit tonight, since we will have time to enjoy it, and for the next two days we will be logging 12 - 14 hours on the road and staying anywhere I could find along the way that accepts dogs. We discover we are the only guests in the whole enclave. My mind races. I ask if they have snowmobiles. They do not. Oh well. She gives us a tour of the main building and it is beautiful! We are not in the main lodge, we are staying in a stand-alone cabin overlooking the Allagheny River.
The Main Lodge at the Lodge at Glendorn, right before Christmas.
The Lodge at Glendorn at one time belonged to a gentleman who invented a better way to distill oil. Extract oil from the ground? Something like that. The lovely young woman told us the story but I was too busy checking things out. But basically, the dude made a fortune and bought a family compound with different cabins and a main house, bordering the Allegheny National Forest. Fly fishing and hunting are big draws here (it is the Orvis 2016 Best Lodge in America for Fly Fishing), and in the winter there is cross country skiing, snowshoeing and the like. She informs us that since we are the only guests, they upgraded us to a nicer (read: closer to the main lodge) cabin, since we had told them we were doing in-room dining. Jack would be lonely without us. And he requires supervision.
Jack, in front of the Jill Cabin, happy to be out of the car.
So off to the cabin we go. It is far bigger than we booked. 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2 fireplaces. Say what?!! We told them to light them both!! It also has a kitchen and a dining room. It is both quaint and elegant. The kitchen appliances are a kick. Who's mom had a stove like that back in the day? And the bathrooms scream 1960. I love it.
We order our dinner and some wine, then try to log onto our respective computers, only to discover the internet is spotty and there is ZERO cell coverage. Bob is surprisingly not mad at me, considering he has a conference call at 10:00pm tonight. He figures it out. Ann dodges a bullet.
Jack, on the other hand, has been in a car for 8 hours and is ready to ROCK! Bob takes him out for a walk, he spazzes out and then comes back in. There is a lovely basket of dog treats which I think is amazing! I bust open the treats and give him some. There are also (2) toys and some towels. How nice!! I then realize the treats are $12. The toys are more. Oh well. The toys can stay; the treats are in a nice jar, we will take them with us. Too late to be frugal for today, that ship has sailed :-)
These lovely dog treats are NOT complimentary at the Lodge at Glendorn!
Dinner arrives and it is amazing! Bob has some butternut squash ravioli, a quail appetizer, sirloin main dish and some peanut butter/brownie dessert that is yummy, but one bite does it. He loves it. I have a pork belly/celeriac number with pickled something, rabbit tenderloin, venison for a main dish... because I want to eat ALL of the forest animals. Then a lemon semi-freddo with blueberry compote and some vanilla cakey-crumbles on top. And no, the menu did not read this way, but I did not keep a copy of one, so I am going high-level. The dinner is amazing, especially in our little cabin in the snow with the dog by the fire.
After dinner I take Jack for a walk. He basically wants to bound through the snow so I let him. In this little enclave they have 4 - 6 inches if not more. 6 miles away, on the highway, there is a dusting. Love it! The snow is super sparkly, it must be cold out. Just beautiful.
Taking Jack for a walk in the snow.
I am now sitting by the fire writing this post as Bob does his call on a land line. There is no way in hell I will be able to upload my photos to complete this post today. I think they have dial-up. So it will have to happen tomorrow. BTW, Bob said we would share the driving on this trip. I bet you one million dollars (which I do not have) that I will not drive one mile. I call it control issues, he is playing the "I-get-car-sick card". Let's see how I make out on this one. I don't care. Tomorrow is Bradford, PA to La Crosse, WI. Good night all, tune in tomorrow! And the next day!
If you are into fly-fishing, or want to get away in a lovely, secluded retreat just south of Buffalo, NY in Bradford, PA, and you have a wad of cash, please consider the Lodge at Glendorn. Rustic elegance with a lot to do! https://www.glendorn.com.
