Sunday, October 26
Down to the Whites
I'm a member of an online forum for enthusiasts of Porsche's 718 model (
718forum.com). Back in the spring of 2025, as turmoil swirled around the new posture between Canada and the U.S., there was a plaintive thread where a user with the handle @SailingInMaine expressed some anxiousness about visiting Canada. What followed was a respectful and slightly heartwarming back and forth about how we could navigate this turmoil as a shared community. And from that, @SailingInMaine proposed a sort of cross-border day drive with forum folks from both sides. We didn't act on it at the time, but the idea stuck with me. You can read the forum posting and the subsequent thread here:
718forum.com/threads/sensitive-question-for-canadian-members.33516.
Fast-forward to the fall, and the idea was still rolling around in my mind, and I decided to actually plan an outing in the spirit of that spring thread. This page is a little writeup that recounts our meetup and drive.
Pre-trip Clean
I originally proposed the idea of a fall drive to the forum at the end of September, but various commitments and weather events kept pushing things out. Finally, the weather and availability converged on Monday, October 27.
North of the border, myself and forum user @BGTS2025 were available and up for this excursion. We had coordinated to meet up with three forum drivers from the U.S. in the town of North Conway in New Hampshire, in the shadow of the Presidential Range and Mount Washington. Unfortunately, user @SailingInMaine - the source of the idea for this drive - wasn't available to join us.
@BGTS2025 and I left very early on Sunday morning the day before. I love wandering and exploring when on road trips, and I wanted to check out a few interesting-looking backways I had been eyeing along our outbound route. Exploring backways inevitably means slower travel times - especially when you consider that I like to stop and capture photos. So, an early departure time was needed.
Canadian Buddy
After meeting up at the local train station, we headed out in tandem, east on highway 417, a divided expressway that connects Ottawa and Montreal. However, we didn't stay on this high-speed route for long, instead opting to turn off south on ON-138 in the direction of Cornwall, then east towards the eastern Ontario hamlet of Alexandria, where we stopped for a classic Canadian breakfast (i.e. eating at a Tim Hortons). On this cool fall morning, ground fog had settled in the low areas of the farmland around us. Up above was a crystal-clear blue sky.
Sunday Morning Breakfast Stop
Alexandria is in extreme Eastern Ontario - only a few kilometres from the border with the province of Quebec. I wanted to cross over into Quebec here because I had spotted a couple of tiny regional roads that looked interesting. They followed along both banks of a small creek called the Riviere Delisle, and had the look and appearance of old original homesteader routes. They hugged the twists and curves of this small creek, and therefore had potential for twistiness, in an otherwise flat expanse of farmlands where the roads were laid out (boringly) along squared-off grid lines. And some close-up inspection with google street view revealed pretty decent pavement.
Ruler Flat
The river-hugging roads turned out to be a decent find: for one, they had character throughout, often curving gently around and up and down near the banks of the small river, passing by the occasional farmhouse and extensive open fields. However, in a few spots there were some genuinely good twists and curves. And because the road had likely been emplaced way back in history, when modern engineering practices were not in place, it retained a lot of interesting little quirks: jigs, sharp corners, varying radius turns. Fun. The only downside was a barred-off bridge on one section, forcing us to retrace our steps a bit (but, on the positive side, allowed us to run some curves a second time).
A little 'spressway
After the Riviere Delisle excursion, we merged onto the Quebec Autoroute network. It was time for us to make some faster progress towards our destination. Autoroute-20 to Autoroute-30 to Autoroute-10, and then on the 10 east for an hour or so. That brought us across the flats of Quebec's Monteregie region to the foothills of the Appalachians in Quebec's Eastern Townships area. As we headed east, the clear skies gave way to mostly overcast, and the higher hilltops in the area were lost in cloud.
A fine-lookin' spoiler
We got off the Autoroute west of the city of Sherbrooke, opting to drive along regular regional roads. I had identified some slightly interesting looking backroads that I thought would offer more pleasant and fun motoring.
Ayer's Cliff
Regional highway QC-141 brought us through the towns of Magog and Ayer's Cliff, then continued southeastwards to the town of Coaticook. The land became hillier and the elevation rose, as we continued further towards the spine of the Appalachian Mountain Range. QC-141 turned into a well-paved set of minor backroads (Chemin du Rang 9 and Chemin Coaticook). The route undulates through higher elevation farmland. Very quiet.
The Appalachians Rise
At the town of East Hereford, we intersected Quebec route 253 - a north-south route that runs very close to the border with Vermont. We turned south here, and in a few minutes, arrived at the sleepy Beecher Falls Port of Entry, where a single officer manning a single lane lackadaisically waved us forward. Our interaction was brief and trouble-free, and moments later we were in the state of Vermont.
Every region has its own character, and transitioning from Quebec into Vermont clearly demonstrated that. The roadbed was a touch different, the signage done in a different graphic style, I like that sort of subtle-yet-interesting variation one encounters on longer road trips.
After passing through the nearby town of Caanan, we headed south - but not on the most expedient and obvious choice, which would be U.S. highway 3, a modern-engineering arterial which follows the Connecticut River. Instead we chose VT-102, a regional highway that parallelled US-3, but on the other side of the river. I had examined VT-102 closely and realized it was more interesting than US-3, with lots of interesting-looking kinks and curves.
Caanan, Vermont
VT-102 was indeed a reasonably curvy backway, sometimes near the banks of the Connecticut River, sometimes near open floodplains, sometimes up in the forested area above the riverbanks. Unfortunately for us, that solid overcast from earlier had started to produce some precipitation, and a slight drizzle dampened, and then fully wet the road, reducing the fun potential and getting the cars all grimy.
We followed VT-102 quite a ways, all the way down to a bridge crossing near the town of Northumberland. Here we crossed over the river to US-3, and at the same time from Vermont into New Hampshire.
Now in New Hampshire, our objective was to head generally towards North Conway. We were transitioning into the White Mountains here, and the highways and roads are subject to the barriers that these higher peaks present. We turned back northeast for a few miles, soon turning onto NH-110, a route that winds across the northern White Mountains to the cirty of Berlin. Dampness and occasional rain continued.
Through Stark
From Berlin, we headed south on NH-16 to the town of Gorham, a place I remembered well from the many hikes and climbs I've done of the various 4000-footer+ peaks of the Northern White Mountains. I had contemplated a final set of twisty road driving down a route to the east of the Carter Range, coming into North Conway on the twisty turns of the Hurricane Mountain road, but looking at the clock, I didn't think we had the time (we had agreed to meet up with some of our American friends around 5:30pm). Plus the rainy weather lessened the appeal of twisty road driving. So, From Gorham, we continued south on NH-16, up and over the 2000+ foot high height of land at Pinkham Notch. The summits of the Carter Range rose to our left, dusted with snow above the 3500-foot level. To the right were the much higher peaks of the Presidential Range, including 6288-foot high Mount Washington. All of the Presidentials, however, were cloaked in cloud. Given the already cool temperature down here at 2000 feet, it was probably full-on winter up at the summit.
The weather had started to break as we neared Pinkham Notch, and by the time we were over the height-of-land and were starting our southern descent towards North Conway, the weather had transformed from a drizzly dull grey to a beautiful golden-tinged afternoon with clouds floating by in a gentle blue sky. There was a surprising amount of fall color still on the leaves in the forest here. The leaf-peeping season wasn't quite yet done, even at this late point in October.
Beautiful fall sunshine to the south
@BGTS2025 and I had booked lodging at the Swiss Chalets Village Inn in North Conway. They were done in a reasonably-convincing swiss-chalet style, and that extended to the tidyness and cleanliness of the rooms. Once settled in, @BGTS2025 and I headed to the nearest self-operated spray-wash to get rid of the day's rain grime. The GTS 4.0s were going to be doing some socializing tonight., and one usually takes a shower before going out and meeting others, right?
With the cars freshly-sprayed, we returned to our motel, where soon enough, a white Cayman T burbled down into the parking lot. This was user @worf, the first of our three American drivers. After a quick but warm greeting, he headed off to check himself in. Separately, I had established contact with user @GT40Guy, who had completed his drive into North Conway and was staying at a nearby motel. After a bit of back-and-forth, we all collectively settled on a restaurant, and headed off to dine there, where we would get to properly meet and get to know each other.
Meeting for Dinner
Twilight was already well underway as we pulled into the parking lot of the Moat Mountain Smokehouse and Brewery, in North Conway. @GT40Guy soon arrived, and in a few more moments we were sitting at a table in the corner of the Brewing house's dining area. Our final driver, @kwikit356, had informed us that he couldn't make dinner and would instead be joining us at breakfast the next morning.
Over Texas BBQ and Haddock Sandwiches, we learned a little bit about each other. Both @worf and @GT40Guy had driven up from Massachusetts, from the suburbs of Boston.
We didn't really have much else to do post-dinner, which was finished by 8pm. That meant everybody got the opportunity for a nice early to-bed time, but not before agreeing to a morning meet-up time of 8am at a local breakfast spot.
