Day 24- Portland Maine to North Conway, NH & Autumn Mog

Day 24 had many options:

Jenny and Simon wrote the article below in RED for their presentation of their day at the Farewell Banquet, however Simon ad-libbed the actual presentation.

A few of us attended some of the 3/4 Morgan Club Downeast Autumn Mog 2015 events in Owl's Head Maine. 

I will write below about that, and other tidbits that I have heard for the day. 

"We were happy to leave The Worst Western Hotel and head quickly out of town towards nature and the scenic drive " to view the fall leaves"  as the locals say.

We gave Google Maps the slip at first,  and traveled through some pretty suburban streets of tidy, old wooden homes with simple gardens and gorgeous big trees.  We travelled along trails named Ossippee,  Pequawet and Indian trail which evoked memories of old cowboy and Indians movies for Simon. Apparently the Indians in the area were beaten off and retreated from Maine to New Hampshire. 

We were surprised at the number of cemeteries and old graves that we passed, and  admired the elaborate decorations on lots of homes for Halloween. 

As we travelled the Maine Scenic highway we were lucky to occasionally see golden leaves fluttering to the ground above the car.  It was still pretty cold and we could well understand why most homes had large amounts of firewood beautifully stacked up to keep the inhabitants warm in the coming winter. 

Mid-morning, we stopped for coffee and the best -ever cinnamon buns at Freyburg, where we were invited by the baker to attend the local agricultural show tomorrow. Poor Simon had to decline. 

The most scenic area to view " the leaves"  was between Jefferson Highlands and Bretton Woods which is an area of small ski fields. The colours were splendid - ranging from light gold to orange to bronze and claret.

Although the weather was still fine we decided not to risk the Mount Washington very steep drive and so continued on route 32 around the many mountains, and on to the imposing rock faces of  Crawford Notch where again,  the trees seemed to stretch forever.

By the time we returned to Conway it was about 2pm -  and the small town was busy with many tour buses and sight seers like ourselves.  The people we spoke to in shops and restaurants were unfailingly friendly and helpful which rounded out a lovely scenic day with easy driving and the  good company of Lesley and Bruce."  

I heard that many of the group did drive up the Mt. Washington Road. Surprisingly it was FREE  this weekend for sports cars. The view was splendid, but was quite chilly. Hopefully Colin will post some photos that I can "borrow" to add to this blog. 

There were four couples that were planning on the trip up to Owl's Head and the Samoset Resort in Rockland. This included us- Elaine and Phil, Australian's Stan and Jen, Bart and Marj, and Ellen Jo and Jim. 

Unfortunately Jim's Morgan developed starting problems back on the way from Halifax to Yarmouth, so instead he and Ellen Jo spent a day or two at Bill and Sheila's at Cape Elizabeth working on fixing the brakes which had been cut when being towed, and trying to fix the starting problem. 

Fixing the Morgan

Ken's Morgan was backed into by the neighbor while he assisted Jim at Bill's house. Our second accident of the whole trip.

Ken B's boo boo

We had only this one day to attend the event, so headed up to the Owl's Head Transportation Museum to enjoy the concours.  We had hoped for the Fall Colors to be well underway, but alas, there were only starting to turn in a few places. 

All of the Morgan's there were beautiful.

Stan and Jen had made plans to attend the Banquet this evening as well as the Concours, so they took over Ellen Jo and Jim's reservation at a very "quaint" motel nearby. 

It was fun to see fellow Californian's Gerry and Barbara, and other West Coast Morgan acquaintances Dave, Bert and Mary there as well. 

Mary and Bert

Barbara and Gerry by Ellen Jo

Ron and Kathy

After lunch, we headed back down a lovely route to join up with the group in North Conway. 

Thank you 3/4 Morgan Club for inviting us to join in with your group.

Twenty of us went out for a mediocre dinner at the Sea Dog Brewpub, where it was very noisy, and had a terrible loud singer.