Tales from the Christensen Cruiser

I rose early to get to the ferry at Essex. It runs from New York to Vermont across Lake Champlain. I parked the rig in line and wandered around the little downtown area. I was truly in the east now. Since I arrived in the dark, it really hadn’t hit me yet, but the town of Essex was pure New England. It had the requisite church with the tall, thin steeple. The fall colors were in their full glory as well. They apparently were a week or two late this particular year – not too good for the tourists, but pretty fine for me. The ferry pulled in and loaded.

It was a fine old craft, very similar to the Rhododendron, our local ferry that runs from Tacoma to Vashon Island. This was about the same exact size, but even older, built in 1913.  She was named the Adirondack. It had bead board, double hung windows, just a cool old boat. The trip across Lake Champlain was beautiful, with various sailboats getting under way. I got off the boat and headed for Burlington, Vermont. I wasted some time trying to find a part or two for the truck to no avail, and then looked for a breakfast joint.

I found the diner of my dreams on the way out of town. It was called The Parkway, coincidently the name of the little tavern in Tacoma where I met Sandy almost eleven years ago. This place was just plain awesome. Built in the forties, it was a totally original diner, all deco and stainless steel, just a beautiful venerable roadside diner. It had never been moved from the original site, had never been “upgraded”, and was under the ownership of the third Greek family in a row. It was as good a breakfast as I have had – set and setting and all that, but these people knew how to run a diner. The place was packed and ran like a Swiss watch. If you’re ever in the area, I’d highly recommend you stopping by.

I motored on to Montpelier, the capital of Vermont. It is a totally charming New England city – downtown is just a beautiful collection of great old buildings. Lots of brick, and at least three churches you could see at once. I found a great independent bookstore and prowled around a bit, found a fabulous art supply store and bought a nice little portable easel. As I walked back to my truck there was a young guy walking in the same direction and he asked if he could have a ride. His name was Gabriel and he rode with me for a short while. He lived a nomadic life and seemed to be doing just fine.

I breezed through New Hampshire in a heartbeat. In that part of the state it is about forty miles across – hard to believe for a guy from the West coast. I got into Maine and meandered at a slow pace. I decided to stay in Rumford, Maine, as it was named for Count Rumford, who is one of my heroes. He was a contemporary of Ben Franklin, and invented some cool stuff. He was a Tory though and got left out of most history books as a result. The invention that sticks with me is his fireplace design. Called a Rumford fireplace, they are found throughout New England in a lot of the old houses. They are very shallow and tall, and it usually looks like the fire is practically out in the room. By looking at one, you would think it would smoke like the dickens, but they don’t. As a matter of fact, they draw as well as any fireplace you will meet. As well as a specific set of parameters to build one of these fireplaces, he also invented the smoke shelf, which all fireplaces now have. The function of a smoke shelf is to make the wind coming down the chimney make a u-turn and head back up the chimney. Vrest Orton of The Vermont Country Store wrote a wonderful little tome about these fireplaces years ago. I have yet to build one, but it is on my list of things I would like to do.

As it was getting towards dark I saw a sign for the Perennial Inn in Rumford Point. Owned by Jenna and Darlene Ginsberg, it was off the main road a bit, and was the house of a wonderful old farm. There was a nice old barn as well, not to mention a hot tub. It was great. As I got into my room, I saw just what a wildman I looked like. I’m lucky they let me have a room – I was unshaven and had a big old grease stain on my face. I looked quite insane to be honest. Turns out they raised Chocolate Labs and I got to meet one of their dogs. Really a nice dog, so I got my dog fix for a time.

The next day’s drive was just spectacular. Fall colors, a nice road, and I was honing in on my goal – Franklin, Maine. I drove to Bangor and then got on Highway 1A to Ellsworth. I picked up a few supplies and headed to the cabin and quarry in Franklin. I made it before dark. The cabin was still standing and looked to be in fairly good shape. The salt marsh below was just the same, and the quarry, with the exception of the graffiti sprayed on the rock faces, was as beautiful as I remembered.