October 2025 – Page 2 – Ian Louis Harris

US Trip 23 September to 8 October, Day Eleven: Leaf Peeping In New Hampshire On The Kancamagus Highway & Bretton Woods, 3 October 2025

Janie (Daisy) took hundreds of pictures and I took a few – a small sample are shown in this piece

After that cheesecake breakfast…

…we set off early for a day of leaf-peeping in New Hampshire.

Janie drove out to Conway, where we discovered (more or less as I expected) that the tourist information office was closed as it is staffed by Federal employees who were in shut-down.

No matter, as I had planned our route carefully anyway.

I took the wheel to drive the Kancamagus Pass to Lincoln. Janie took an infeasible number of pictures along the way, and some video (just 2’42”).

We stopped at Rocky Gorge and took a short walk around the gorge, going beyond the tourist-heavy area on the car park side of the bridge and finding some quieter spots where we could explore the gorge a little.

We encountered a wedding couple having their pictures taken. We discreetly left them alone, only to subsequently witness a bossy-boots cyclist women telling the couple and their photographer how to do it “her way”.

I continued the drive beyond Lincoln, starting the journey home “the long-way-round” by driving up into the foothills of Mount Washington to Bretton Woods.

This enabled us to see some different scenery and also enabled us to take a break at the Omni Mount Washington Resort, which was the scene of the 1944 Bretton Woods conference.

This felt, to me, a pilgrimage I needed to make. We wanted a light lunch, so we ordered just a couple of “appetisers”: calamari & fries. The portions were so darned enormous, I don’t think we ate much more than half of the food presented to us.

The bar manager who served us was very helpful, and knew Portland well, so gave us some dining tips that served us well for the rest of our holiday.

Upstairs after dining, I hoped to see The Gold Room where the documents founding the International Monetary Fund were formally signed off. While searching for the room, a small man asked if he could help us, we explained our mission and he most certainly helped us as it turned out that he is the new General manager of the Omni Mount Washington.

“John & Henry have texted to say they have some documents for me to sign”

That was good fortune as we sensed that most people around there only had the vaguest idea about the site’s historic past.

The Ballroom where the conference took place

Yup, I’ll vote in favour of that…whatever it is…economics or something?

Janie did the longer drive home, via Wholefoods, where we had planned to stock up for a supper at home on Sunday, but after our bumper lunch and long day, we resolved to have a supper at home also that evening.

I had been keen to try the nova style of salmon, which I had read is subtly different from “Scottish” smoked salmon style and New York lox style. Wholefoods afforded us the opportunity to try some small packets of the various types of salmon, so we could have a private tasting of those things.

It actually proved to be a very pleasant and tasty way to end the day. And after all the fried food of calamari & chips, some smoked fish and salad seemed just the ticket.

If you are crazy enough to want to look at all 200 or so pictures from this day (at least one or two gallant readers have already done so pre-publication), you can click this Flickr link or the picture link below.

US Trip 23 September to 8 October, Day Ten: Orientation In Portland Maine, Followed By Dinner At Street & Co., 2 October 2025

Some of the orientation required sitting on our terrace enjoying the sun & the view

Our house was a very very very fine house

We decided to make this an orientation day, so we did a fair bit of walking around but not a lot of things.

Giant cruise ships were regular features in the harbour

I had spotted that we were relatively close to a nice-looking and well reviewed Italian deli, Micucci, so we started our exploration there. After buying a few provisions there (and checking out that we would return for other stuff during our week) we progressed on to have a look at the tennis courts on the Eastern Promenade, which looked well-appointed so I resolved to work out how to book those.

We walked all around the Eastern Promenade and met a really nice lady near the bandstand who gave us some good advice ahead of our Kancamagus trip tomorrow.

Then home again via the convenience store at the top of our street where we stocked up on some basics that Italian delis don’t sell, such as breakfast cereal, bananas and milk.

Several of the fancier restaurants were fully booked for this night, but I got us a late evening booking at Street & Co, that looked good for seafood. I also made one or two other bookings for later in our week to be sure to have places to go, as it seems the better places book up.

Street & Co is on the wharf, about 20 minutes walk from our flat. It was a buzzing place and they kept us waiting best part of 30 minutes for our table. But the wait was worth it, as the grub was great. A home-made tomato soup that tasted like an Uber-posh Heinz tomato soup on steroids.

Then, perhaps unwisely, we had the Lobster and seafood linguini dish for two, which comes with a “wrestle-your-own” lobster to share.

In our defence, I think the chefs had forgotten to crack the claws with their industrial instruments before serving, as the less-industrial tools we were given were not really up to the task. This is partly inadequate work-folk blaming their tools, but I think the waitress realised the error when Janie asked for some help. The dish was utterly delicious though…almost worth the fight…although we think our lobster-wrestling days are behind us now. The “lazy lobster”options look that much more enticing.

There’s a man who knows how to cut a cheesecake

No such fight with the cheesecake, which looked super special and was. We shared one piece and took a second piece home for tomorrow’s “breakfast”. Indulgent? Yes, and why not when we are on holiday? It was the best cheesecake we tasted on the whole of our trip.

If you want to see all the pictures from this day, click this Flickr link or the picture link below.

US Trip 23 September to 8 October, Day Nine: Cape Cod To Portland Maine Via Lunch With Pady Jalali Just South Of Boston, 1 October 2025

Me, Janie & Pady – thank you, photographer/waitress.

Janie and I set off quite early from Cape Cod after a hearty breakfast and fond farewells with our hosts Mike and Helen.

Janie drove the 90 minutes from Cape Cod to South Shore Plaza in Braintree, just south of Boston, where we had arranged to meet Pady at the American Cheesecake Factory.

It was lovely to see Pady again, after a couple false starts over the past few years, due to her unfortunate needs to abort planned visits to England, most recently in July.

A few hours flew by before our agreed departure hour arrived – 3:00ish, to avoid the Boston traffic on the way out to Portland.

Pady had carefully planned the convenience of the meet up around an easy to find and get away from location. But none of us had counted on an earlier than usual rush hour, on account of the Red Sox playing the Yankees in a play-off match starting at 6:00. Who knew?

What would have been a little over two hour drive became a three-and-a half hour drive, which Janie insisted on doing, pleading that I was better at navigating to new destinations, which might be true.

We arrived in Portland just as it was getting dark. We checked in to our lovely AirBnb apartment and then went in search of a local casual place, as we didn’t want all that much food after sampling “light lunch” and sharing a cheesecake with Pady earlier.

We found a quirky, casual place named The East Ender, which turned out to be a karaoke bar downstairs and a casual diner upstairs. The wailing from the karaoke bar had to be heard to be believed, but mercifully the sound didn’t much travel up the stairs. We were able to enjoy a light supper of caesar salad (Janie) and schnitzel (me).

One of the waitresses suggested that we might like to try our hands at the karaoke. When I told her that I could offer some Renaissance tavern songs, she said:

Medieval? Scary!

At that juncture, Janie and I saw our opportunity to leave and have a much-needed early night.

If you want to see all the photos from that day, click this Flickr link or the picture one below:

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