Day 18 - 2025 East Coast Adventure - Beavers, Porcupine, and Ice Cream, Oh My!

8/4 Moosebrook State Park, NH to Half Moon Pond State Park, VT

Today we would transition from the White Mountains and into the Green!  Sebastian helped Amy pack up camp while Robinson and I caught and examined tadpoles.  



We decided that we really liked Moosebrook so we got bumper stickers and Amy got some "Moose Smooch" coffee before we headed west.

As we headed out, we realized that our drive was taking us past the "Presidential" mountains that are all part of the Appalachian Trail.  While it would be amazing to hike just one of them, we just didn't leave the time in this vacation for it so we had to admire them from afar.  Unfortunately, the forest fires of Canada were creating a lot of smoke and so we were left with a white haze in the air all day.  

As we headed west, we had a good distance of non-interstate roads.  In fact, on three separate occasions, the roads we were taking were unpaved.  Now that was unexpected!  However, because of this, we were able to see  
3 unpaved road sections which included some maple tree farms for maple syrup.  While not the best picture, below is what it looks like when someone permanently installs plumbing to be able to tap the maple trees each year.  Needless to say, it took us a while to figure out just what was going on.




On our trip, we promised the boys we could stop for some sweets.  We were looking for a maple frosted donut and, while we thought we had found one, unfortunately, the donut shop was closed.  Fortunately, Ben & Jerry's open!  We visited graveyard first which is where they paid homage to their flavors of days gone by. 

From there we toured their campus a bit which included a playground and plenty of photo opportunities.










Inside the building we found out that their tours were all sold out, so couldn't do that.  However, they had ice cream for sale and so we decided that was a fair replacement.  Robinson and I split a large bowl that included Phish food, the tonight dough, cookies and cream while Amy and Sebastian got a scoops of strawberry cheesecake, peanut butter chocolate, and turtle sundae.  They were all delicious!



We arrived at Half Moon Pond State Park and were greeted by some very friendly staff. They had a little library and Robinson grabbed "A walk in the Woods"!  Then Robinson set up camp nearly on his own before we went to play in Half Moon Pond. 

Sebastian and Amy did paddle boards (first attempt, but they did great) while Robinson and I went swimming. The temperature of the water was really nice at the surface, though when you went down and disturbed the lower waters, they were not nearly as enjoyable.  As an added bonus, the haze from the forest fire started to dissipate and the blue skies started to return. 

We had dinner and then Amy and boys played cards while I went on a hike. There were SOOOO many mosquitoes and deer flies. However, it was worth it in the end because I got to see a porcupine, 2 beavers, and 2 deer!  However, lesson learned - next time, I'll bring bug spray. 



I got back to camp and used my token for the pay shower (much cheaper than last night's pay shower so I chose to stink for a day) and then we all went to bed. 

Trip mileage - 3,089
# states - 13
# provinces - 3

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