Call it a make-up vacation.  A do-over of sorts.  Back in April Kylie and I had a trip planned to visit London and Ireland only to have the whole thing disrupted and ultimately cancelled by - of all things - a volcano in Iceland.  A volcano.  In Iceland.  Fast forward a couple months, and after reconciling the fact I would not be seeing sheep roaming the rolling, lush Irish country side near a 200 year old castle, we both were feeling the need to get outta Dodge for a few days.  The struggles and monotony of daily life had set in and before we knew it, there were days we felt like we were just passing each other in the hallway on the way to getting something else on the to-do list done.  It was time to get away. After a little bit of indecision about where to go (mostly on my part), we spun the proverbial globe and landed on New England in the fall.  Being a little naive about the popularity of NE during the peak fall color season, we were a little, um, unprepared for how difficult it would be to score places to stay.  I was given the task of planning out the trip since Kylie basically did all the trip-planning for our 11 day honeymoon in Italy.  I thought to myself, Pffft...how hard could a couple days in New Engalnd be?  2 weeks later I was practically begging Kylie for help, and of course, she came through... after rolling her eyes at me a few times.  Hey I did get the first night's accommodations and dinner planned.  Baby steps, folks.  Baby steps. Little did we know this trip would end up becoming our babymoon when we found out not too long ago that we're pregnant with our first mininicolosi (thanks for the name, Kim).  I didn't even know what a babymoon was until a little over a month ago.  I never saw the chapter on babymoons in my life manual, but apparently that chapter also mentions things like push presents.  Push presents??  Clearly a group of moms have conspired to milk this pregnancy thing for all it's worth.  I kid, people. I kid.  Kylie deserves every bit of pregnancy pizzazz Hallmark and it's cohorts can dream up. I know what you're thinkin'.... Blah bu-blah blah blah...Man, would he get on to the pictures already??  I'm almost there grasshopper. So the night before we're supposed to fly out to Boston, I notice I'm gettin' a little achy and a bit of the chills.  Those bit of chills turned into all out shivering while I was trying to sleep, and I woke up with a fever around 102.  I swear I looked like a neanderthal the next morning as I was lumbering around trying to throw some clothes in the suitcase.  I don't remember much of what Kylie said to me that morning, but I think I responded in caveman speak with things like  Ungh... shirt.  Cold.  Jacket good.  Camera heavy.  I just wanted to crawl back into bed.  But this was our babymoon.  Nobody and nothin' stops the babymoon. Long story short, turns out I had developed phlebitis in my right leg in addition to a nasty skin infection in my shin and calf area on my right leg.  So we spent the better part of the first day at the doctors office followed by a little trip to the hospital.  Good times.  But did I mention nothing gets in the way of the babymoon?  After nabbing a prescription from a doc in addition to a heavy dose of Alleve, we were on our way. I didn't take as many photos as I thought I would, mostly because I just didn't feel like picking up my camera for the first day or two.  Here's some of my favorites of the ones I did take, though. These first three were near the House of Seven Gables in Salem while we were killin' time waiting for my first Dr's appointment.

Here's where we stayed the first night in Maine, The Inn at Tanglewood Hall.  This place was freakin' beautiful and inn keepers Su and Andy were so friendly and personable.  I couldn't recommend this place more if you're looking for a B&B to stay in near York.

The next 7 images are random photographs from the inn.

From there we drove the coast of Maine for a bit in search of lighthouses.  This was the last bit of sun we saw for the day as tropical rains parked themselves in the sky over this region for most of the afternoon and evening.

Sorry, no Hoff sightings.

This is the Nubble Lighthouse in York.  I'd seen it before a few years back, but I never get tired of views like this.

It was a little windiliscious as they storms started moving in.

A got the brilliant idea I was gonna get a great photo of the sea gulls by luring one or two of them over towards me with a Fritos Honey BBQ Twist corn chip.  I got a little more than I bargained for.  At the first sight of a snack, I was bombarded a la Hitchcock style with a flock of seagulls.  All I could see and hear was Kylie laughing when I seriously ran for and dove back inside the car. Here's a view ;ooking out the windshield at one of the perpetrators.

After cycling the windshield wipers, here's a better view of his mug.

While continuing on our drive, we came upon a partially dried up lakebed.  Looked like a graveyard of sorts for some smaller boats.  Stunk as all get-out, but had some great photo ops.

Next several images are from a a beach area somewhere between York and Portland, Maine.  Loved this footbridge.

Mama Nicolosi at 12 weeks.

Then we stumbled upon this place on teh side of the rode that was a freakin' gold mine for collectibles and all things nostalgic.  We were starved and trying to avoid rain, though, so I only spent about 10 minutes here.  I could've easly spent 3 hours.

We finally rolled into Portland, Maine around 4:15pm, and of course the light house we came to see closed at 4.  The trip took a little longer to get there than what we estimated... like 3 hours longer.  Oh, well, still ran out and was able to get this image of the Portland Head Light.  This is an HDR image for any photographers out there that were wondering.

The next 2 days were spent in new Hampshire near Stowe where we visited Cabot Cheese Farm to see how cheese was made, a maple syrup farm to see how pure maple syrup is made, and then Ben and Jerry's factory to see - you guessed it - how they make their ice cream.  Vermont also had a little more color than some of the other areas we visited.

We were also able to find a few old covered bridges in Vermont.