Portland, Maine

The weather has not cooperated with us. We had to disembark and load the bus for our tour at 8:00 am in the pouring rain. We drove from Portland, Maine to New Hampshire to Mt. Washington. The reason? To see the world's first cog train and until recently the steepest grade for a cog train at 37%. Mt. Washington is the highest peak on the eastern seaboard and is known for the world's worst weather. It has clocked the world's top windspeed at 235 mph. Since it was raining when we boarded the bus, we didn't have high hopes for the day. It was a 3 hour bus ride and our guide NEVER stopped talking. And it wasn't all great information. Mostly it was random tidbits about his life or other trivial information. But we did make a brief stop on the way and I was able to capture the fall colors that were just barely starting to turn. Unfortunately, we were told, the later summer had postponed the really gorgeous colors.



We boarded the train for the 40 minute train ride to the top.



The track starts the ascent and disappears into the heavy fog or cloud or whatever it was!



The wind was blowing and the rain was pouring and we got a picture of us at the top. Sorry about the raindrops on the lens!



Here is a picture of the track with the cog track in the middle. It kind of looks like a roller coaster track.



We then rode the train down and returned to Portland on the bus. We drove through lots of small Maine and New Hampshire towns. We saw a pet store with an amusing name, "For Your Paws Only." - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad