Sunday 9 October 2016
Today we travel through the wonderful autumn colours once again going over Crawford Notch – but this time making use of the preserved train service. We are in the White Mountains and the area is very busy today – the train is very well loaded and as we later discover so are the roads!
The Conway Scenic Railroad is based close to our hotel in North Conway so it is a short journey to the station on our coach and once tickets have been secured we can wander around taking photos of the other locos and of our train as it shunts. The Railroad has three services, the main one is over the Notch which we shall be taking and two others through the valley but time does not allow us to take part in these.
Later in the day we hear reports that leaf fall has commenced and so this weekend is “peak colour” which is achieved immediately before the leaf fall commences, so despite earlier misgivings it turns out we could not have timed our trip any better than we did!
The photographs of the train and colours are extensive!
We move onto lunch – and it is clear that the entire area is at maximum capacity as the small eating house as just a couple of empty seats at the bar outside, all of the inside rooms being full! Everyone has descended for the colours! We actually eat quite well.
Our onward progress is slow after lunch as we get stuck in a traffic jam. There is a local event on and there is a lot of traffic turning in and out of the location and it takes nearly an hour to get past it. After that our progress is not too bad and our journey back to North Conway is along the Kancamagus Highway. This is apparently the best place to view the colours and it is a good trip.
Towards the end of our journey we take a detour as one of the promised points of the journey is to see one of the covered bridges which used to be very common in USA but less so these days.
Photographs of the Highway and the covered bridge.
Once back at North Conway we wander out to the shopping centre and we go to Applebee’s simply because it is convenient. We go to the bar for a drink but are asked not to sit there and we have to wait in a seating area until a table is free. Nothing wrong with the food – more the quality of the service.