On the road to Dartmouth, I had to go through Bethel, so I took a very short detour and returned to the field where the Olympia Snow snow-woman had been. Alas, she had completely melted (no surprise, but I felt compelled to check).
They even removed the sign that told about her (but just the information on the sign, not the framework):
This is tricky because today I drove through Maine and Vermont to get to Dartmouth University in New Hampshire. (Well, I drove across New Hampshire first, and then south through Vermont, and then crossed the river to get back into New Hampshire.) So the tricky part is: does this count as something to do with Maine and so it goes in this blog or does it count as a travel outside of Maine and so it goes in my travel blog? I decided to put the Maine part in this blog and the rest in the travel blog. You'll have to click here to go see what Paul Harvey would call, "The Rest of the Story."
The fascinating part of the trip in Maine was the town of Rumford. I was caught by surprise to see a giant lumberjack on the side of the road. I probably wouldn't have stopped except that it looked exactly like a statue of a man holding a muffler (instead of an ax) that was located on the road near Hollins where I went to college for my bachelor's. There is such a funny story about that statue and how it mysteriously appeared on campus in the middle of the night one night. And so instead of driving by, I decided to stop and take a quick photo. And that led to all this other cool stuff that was located in the same area.
These are flat metal sculptures perched around the park. I assume it's to artistically remind everyone about the early settlers and the Native Americans who once lived here and yet not impair our view of the river, the falls, and the natural beauty.
And here's a little tribute to Edmund Muskie who grew up in Rumford, Maine. Who knew?! Well, probably plenty of folks, but not me, not until now.
This has nothing to do with Maine . . . this has everything to do with bad tires. How can I have a repeat of this freakish tire incident??
And this time there's a baby one as well as the gargantuan one.
Good Year says it's not their tires, it's road hazards. Hmmmm . . . Let's see. I've been driving the car for 32,000 miles and within 800 miles and 8 weeks of each other, once in Massachusetts and once in New Hampshire, I get the same road hazard that creates an "I've never seen anything like it before" bulge on my tire? I replaced the Good Years with Dunlaps this time.
BTW, I've seen the reports of the problems with old tires and I checked the dates on these. They were only 4 months old when I bought the car, so it's not that problem.
