Destinations

New England is a wonderful travel destination at all times of the year – however I think it is the most glorious in the fall.

We picked Route 7, which follows the Housatonic River along the western edge of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont. Our first stop was in Kent which is lovely little town. We hiked in Kent Falls State Park along beautiful water falls.  Drove across the Bulls Covered bridge and hiked along the Bull’s Bridge Gorge. We were constantly oo-ing and ah-ing over the colors and the scenery.  Leaving Kent there was the Cornwall covered bridge to drive across.

Our next stop was in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where the highlight was the Norman Rockwell Museum. Norman Rockwell spent his last 20 years there. Nearby in Lenox there is the National Historic Landmark, The Mount. The 1902 estate of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edith Wharton with  acres of beautiful gardens.

We continued north to Williamstown to visit the Clark Art Institute with its outstanding collection of European and American art. The Clark is surrounded by 140 acres of woodlands, meadows and hiking trails.  We spent the night in Addison, Vermont (near Middlebury) in the most charming country inn, the Whitford House (off the beaten track). The nearby town of Vergennes is well worth a visit.

Before ending our trip in Burlington, we visited Shelburne open air Museum. A complex of 37 buildings on 45 acres with an incredible collection of folk art, furnishings, tools etc used in the early years of the 20th century. We returned home with many bottles of Vermont maple syrup and decided we need to go back for more exploring of this beautiful part of the country.

I feel so lucky to live near San Francisco so I can take advantage of the secret staircases spread throughout the city.  San Francisco is a walking town much the same as Paris is a walking town.

In the late 1980’s I discovered a book called “STAIRCASE WALKS IN SAN FRANCISCO” by Adah Bakalinsky.  Ever since discovering this book my friends and I drive to San Francisco once a month and take one of Adah’s staircase walks.  We can do one of the staircases in June and it looks completely different if we do it in January.  So, we try to not do them the same time of year.

San Francisco is a “walking city.”  Built upon 42 hills, it is surrounded by the Bay on the east, the Pacific Ocean on the west, a peninsula on the south and the Golden Gate Bridge on the north.  Within these confines, variety is constant.  Because of the hills you get breathtaking views of the city and the water, and the   hills accelerate changes in your perspective as one walks around corners or circles the ridges.  Some of the walks are quite strenuous, although I feel the terrific views justify the strain.

You simply cannot do the stairways without Adah’s book.  With book in hand we follow her guide and if we didn’t have the book we probably wouldn’t find most of the staircases as most are hidden and we are always so shocked when we look to our left or right and sure enough – there is a staircase taking us up or down to another street.

If you live near San Francisco or if you are visiting, all you need is two hours, a bottle of water and good walking shoes and you will have a wonderful time.

Amazing what one remembers from a unique experience — did you know that polar bears have very flexible noses so that they can quietly wait for a ringed seal to pop out of a hole in the ice but still smell possible dangers to the left and right of them by angling their nostrils to either side?  Did you know that they have their claws up on the top of their very fully padded feet so that the nails make no noise as they stalk on the ice?   These and many other natural details we learned on an amazing journey to CHURCHILL, MANITOBA  — the Polar Bear Watching Capital of the North.   Churchill, a small town of 850 citizens located on the shores of Hudson Bay hosts a gathering of the polar bears of the region as they wait for the pack ice on the Bay to harden.  They are awaiting a seal meal after almost 4 months of no food intake and can only do this once the ice hardens..  Large males, females with one or two yearling cubs or with their “coy” (cub of year… this year’s issue) as well as  younger females await the ice and regain their energy for the feast time ahead.

Fascinated photographers, amateur naturalists and polar bear enthusiasts come from around the world to Churchill during October/November each year to view the variety of wildlife in this Arctic region.  What can you see??  Arctic fox, red fox, Arctic hare, ptarmigan, sable, gyrfalcon, hardy ravens, and the ever-so-fascinating polar bears.  With -15ºC temperatures (warm compared to later in the winter season) and brisk winds, I had to find my old Antarctica gear in the bottom of drawers and the back of the closet in order to be prepared for time on the taiga and tundra.  I traveled with Frontiers North on the “Enthusiasts Program” which gave me time to experience my first dog sled rides with eager and hardy running dogs of the Wapusk Adventures dog stable.  The town of Churchill has solid citizens proud of their town and clear in their purpose — full of good humor and many, many “just escaped’ polar bear stories … you have to look left, right, in front and behind you when you step out of doors.  Actually, the town has a 24/7 Polar Bear patrol to make sure the bears don’t wander into town.  The nightly 1000pm curfew siren reminds kids that they must be at home and inside for safety.  Those occasional nighttime forays by an errant bear may result in being put in Bear Jail, then tranqilized and finally helicoptered about 50 miles from town to be released on the shores of the Hudson Bay ice flow.

I spent two full days on a famed Tundra Buggy (specially designed hardy vehicles on huge industrial-sized rubber tires with a viewing cabin on top as well as an open deck platform on the back) traveling across the landscape in search of wildlife and bears in particular.  Our naturalist guide and experienced driver helped us spot a variety of bears — sleeping quietly in the low taiga willows, walking behind agéd but very small spruce trees, male bears sparring on the ice testing their strengths with each other in mock fights, and mother bears with twins or small coy cubs ever wary for larger and more aggressive males.  One full day we spent in town visiting the outstanding Eskimo Museum and the Parks Canada Museum and Historical display.  We were able to see an amazing video of the remarkable Northern Lights (we did not see it in real-time as we were close to the full moon).  The real Aurora Borealis will have to await another adventure to the far northern climes.