New England - It's, like, awesome!

Awesome Golf - N. Conway
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The plan for the next few weeks was to explore some of New England, ending up in Cape Cod for the July 4 weekend. Arriving at Alamo to pick up our "compact" car, we were pleasantly surprised to end up with an upgrade to a sexy red Pontiac because they were all out of anything smaller. So off we set up the coast. Monts had masterminded some driving music for the iPod after a few beers, but her super-mix of Blondie, Queen, Dusty Springfield, House of Pain and Frank Sinatra had to vie with Phill's worrying newfound love for country music, which seemed to revolve around pop being an alcoholic and ma stabbing him.

Frog Lake - N. Conway
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Stopping off for lunch at Portsmouth, we got our first real eyeful of New England. Now, no disrespect to ol' Sam and his friends, but if they hated the English so much, why call all the towns things like Portsmouth and make them look like Dorking? It really was quite strange to be somewhere so like a quaint English village, and Monts felt a stab of homesickness which none of our more exotic destinations had induced. We wandered around feeling spooked, had some more chowder for lunch and then headed on to North Conway in the White Mountains, where we thought we might finally see a moose.

Mount Washington (is out there)
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The first hint of the moosiness of the While Mountains was the name of our motel - the Spruce Moose and to be honest, we would probably have struggled to find somewhere to stay that did not have moose in the name. Our arrival was greeted by some very friendly hosts and their two dogs, a sprightly Jack Russell called Lily and a big fat Labrador called Whitman (or small dog, fat dog as Phill immediately re-christened them). We discovered shortly after that we were lucky not to have arrived on a motorbike as Lily has a penchant for biker's legs and had chewed an earlier guest who had then decided to go stay somewhere else. Thankfully Lily wasn't particularly interested in us... until breakfast time, that is. At that point we became the dogs' best friends. Whitman would come and stick his head on our laps and look at us (our sausage and egg, actually) with longing. Lily, being rather smaller threw us loving glances from further down. Leon, the landlord, rustled up some rather good nosh and the dogs knew it. Unfortunately for them, we were impervious to their doggie eyes and ate it all ourselves, although other guests gave in, which would account for Whitman's large backside.

Spruce Moose - N. Conway
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In addition to moose, the White Mountains are home to Mount Washington. As we could have predicted, it was covered in cloud, so instead we drove to a lake for a walk. The path was covered in tiny hopping frogs who had just emerged from the water while their large parents croaked loudly from the pond. We tried not to step on too many while swatting at the several thousand mosquitoes which swarmed round our heads and munched on us on the way round. We were also disappointed to learn that the other main attraction, a vintage train that runs up a scenic route to the foot of Mount Washington, wasn't yet running. Wondering what else we could do, we chanced across a large and incredibly kitch mini-golf complete with pirates and an unfeasibly blue waterfall. What the hell, we thought, let's pretend we're seven again (most of the other punters were). On entering to pay our fee and pick up our clubs from a spotty young chap, we were treated to some of the lingo typical of New England youngsters and which we would enjoy repeatedly over the next few weeks. It went something like this:

Portsmouth Chowda Shack
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"Hi, we wanted to play some mini-golf."

"Awesome! Have you played here before?"

"No"

"Awesome!"

Portsmouth Town Centre
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"..."

"We have two courses that are, like, awesome. One is a bit easier and has, like, a whale and a small waterfall and the other one has, like, pirates and, like, stuff and a big waterfall and it's, like, awesome!"

"OK, we'll go for the pirates"

"Awesome! That'll be $14"

"Thanks"

"Where are you guys from?"

"England"

"Awesome!"

Anyhow, the minigolf was pretty fun. Monts got a hole in one, but was beaten by Phill in the end, as usual. We didn't get attacked by any pirates either, because they turned out to be made out of papier mache.

Despite assurances from our hosts that there were moose about, we never spotted any and we had to admit that, in the wildlife stakes, we were just not having much luck. However, Monts cheered up considerably when Spain won the Euro 2008 and embarrassed Phill by jumping up and down in the pub. Luckily all the Americans were also supporting Spain, because they have Torres, who's cute and has nice hair (at least according to the ladies sitting behind us).

After two days and no moose we bade farewell to Nellie, Leon, Lily and Whitman and headed off towards the Berkshires, (that'll be "Burkshires"... hey they nick all the names, but then don't bother to pronounce them proper, like). On the way, we detoured up the route taken by the train, to the Mount Washington Hotel, where Roosevelt and his pals came up with the idea for IMF and World Bank after a few beers. Mount Washington was still being shy, although the rest of the scenery was visible; not quite the Rockies but very pretty. After a long drive we reached Lenox, another excruciatingly pretty village which has the added distinction of being home to the Tanglewood music school, which hosts open air concerts in the summer. We found a not too excruciatingly expensive room in a lovely old house, which looked like it hadn't changed for hundreds of years, and neither had the landlady, who looked like Jackie O's mother, or at least what we imagined Jackie O's mother might look like. Our room was like something straight out of Home and Garden with a four poster bed and pink curtains.

After a long day's travelling we decided against the evening concert and instead had a quiet meal and a good night's sleep. Next morning our landlord told us that James Taylor would be playing a sell-out couple of nights at Tanglewood. Unaware that he was even still alive, let alone living in Lenox and still churning out "You've got a friend", this ruled out staying another night for a concert, so we moved on to Rhode Island, where we had originally only planned to stay one night but ended up staying for three.