After our extortionate taxi ride, we got our flight to Boston, where the weather was just stunning and the city looked lovely from the plane - right on the sea with pretty lighthouses and houses.
Using the internet at the airport, we worked out that we wanted to drive up into the White Mountains to peep at the leaves, so got our rental car and headed off to New Hampshire, with the help of trusty GPS.
Our dreamy drive got off to a rocky start, when we unexpectedly hit a toll and had absolutely no cash. The man was very mean and shouted at us, but gave us an envelope which we could post in with the money we owed in it.
So off we went, desperately trying to remain upbeat on what had so far been a rather unpleasant adventure.
Fortunately the astounding array of leaves that we drove through on o
ur way to the mountains was enough to cheer us up. It was like nothing I'd ever seen, other than on a Laura Ashley dress I had when I was little - an extraordinary tapestry of vivid reds, oranges, yellows and greens. They say that the colour of the leaves moves north to south, so things just got more beautiful the further north we drove.
We stopped for lunch in Concord, the state capital of New Hampshire which is a really pretty little town, a bit like a large version of Wareham. Fortunately people were a lot more friendly there than in Boston and we had a nice break.
Keen to get a move on and get to the mountains, while also being a bit distracted by the beautiful foliage, I whizzed us along in the car, merrily singing along to Coldplay (I do excellent 'oo-ee-oo' backing bits on Viva La Vida), until I spotted a state trooper standing in the hard shoulder, pointing at our car and shouting.
Now then, I'm not a massive speeder - I don't do hundreds of miles an hour in a 30 mph limit. But I do find 80 mph a nice natural speed to go at on a 3-lane road - fast enough to get somewhere, but not so crazy-fast that I feel I can't react if something goes wrong. I really hate going slow.
Unfortunately I hadn't really registered that, despite being on a road as big as a British motorway (and unfortunately going downhill, too), the speed limit was 65 mph. So it was understandable that I'd been picked off by the state trooper. And I was pretty resigned to it - I've never been caught speeding before, either here or at home, so figured my time was bound to come at some point.
So the state trooper was shouting 'pull over' and pointing at me, so I pulled onto the central reservation bit. It looked like that's where he was pointing and plus, with him being on foot on the hard shoulder, by the time I pulled across two lanes of traffic and got onto the hard shoulder, I'd be half a mile away from him.
But apparently this was not what he wanted. He went LOOPY, just screaming at the top of his voice, 'GET OUTTA THERE. GET OVER HERE. NOOOOOWWW', pointing to the hard shoulder.
So, from a standing start, I treacherously pulled across three lanes of whizzing cars, to the hard shoulder.
But this still wasn't good enough for shouty state trooper man! I thought he might actually burst a blood vessel as he shouted, 'GET OFF THERE. GET YOUR WHEELS OFF THE ROAD. NOOOOOOWWW - THIS IS THE EMERGENCY LANE - WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING? GET YOUR WHEELS OFF THE ROAD NOOOOOOOWWW!!'.
Usually, if an authority figure was shouting that loudly at me, I'd be on the verge of tears and may even fear for my life. But this dude's reaction was so totally over the top and he seemed to be taking it so very personally that I'd broken his precious speed limit, that I found myself weirdly calm and kind of just marvelling at the whole experience.
Once the state trooper finally got me where he wanted me, he came over to the car and started screaming at me, asking where on earth I learned to drive. Putting on my best bemused British accent, I said, 'oh well, Britain actually', to which he screamed, 'WHEEERRE??' (it didn't surprise me that he hadn't heard of Britain) and when I repeated myself he - without removing his sunglasses or resisting every state trooper cliche you've ever heard of - said, 'Well welcome to America - you've got yourself a ticket'.
Turns out I was going 83 mph in a 65 mph area, so I figured that was fair enough. Buster Bloodvessel then took my licence away, hung out at his car for ages and came back and issued me with a 'summons', which confused me until he explained it's a ticket but if I don't pay it, then I have to go to court and they'll track me down in Britain and take my licence off me.
Safe in the knowledge that that dude was going to have a far more miserable life than me, if he got that upset by tourists speeding, I drove off, asking Max to look at how much the ticket was for. Emily and Anne had both told me that speeding fines are really low out here and you have to go really fast to get anything over $100.
So imagine my dismay when Max said I owed $250!! The combination of the shouty man and thinking of a) how little money I have and b) how much I'd spent on the appalling hotel that hadn't even served the purpose I was hoping it would, made me cry and I was convinced this would be the worst weekend ever.
Desperately trying to zen out, we made our way - very slowly and below the speed limit - to the White Mountains. I hate going slow. But fortunately the Kancamagus Scenic Byway was worth all the trouble.
The scenery was breathtaking and we found ourselves stopping every few minutes to take photos of yet more stunning views of beautiful leaves set against crisp blue skies. It was gorgeous, driving along tree-lined roads and stopping whenever we felt like it.
The folks up in the White Mountains are already very ready for Halloween, especially in the small village of Ammonoosuc, where I stopped to take a photo of a cool mailbox that was decorated for halloween, only to look up and find a scary child in dungarees just standing in the middle of the driveway, staring at me. It was exactly like something out of a Stephen King book.
Beating a hasty retreat from Creepsville, we soon realised that we had bitten off way too much than we could chew - certainly within legal speed limits - in order to get back to Boston for our 8pm dinner reservation.
So the afternoon became a slightly frantic rush to complete the drive and get back to town in time. However, it being our anniversary, we had to get out of the car and kick leaves. When Max and I got together (10.10.02), he invited me out on a date to kick leaves in Hyde Park. I thought this sounded like the most romantic thing ever and was very excited by this chap. Things got even more exciting when we met in the park and kicked leaves and then he went to lie his overcoat down for us to sit on, but not before reaching into the pocket and through the torn lining into the actual coat itself, to pull out a bottle of champagne and two glasses, saying, "will you be my girlfriend?". Awesome. And the rest is history! So we figured that, with New England leaves being all pretty at this time of year, we'd indulge in a bit of leaf-kicking up there.
So we got out at Sabbaday Falls and frolicked in the thick carpet of multi-coloured leaves, 
before admiring the waterfall and getting back into the car to hotfoot it back to Boston, sticking to the pesky speed limit, of course.
We were in a real hurry when we finally got back to Boston airport to return the car and were so grateful to the man there for being the first nice person we'd met all day, by not charging us for the petrol that was missing from the tank.
We weren't grateful however to his colleague, who recommended we get a taxi to our hotel if we were in a hurry, only to order one that didn't turn up for aaaaages. And then when it did, the dude didn't know where he was going (I'm not sure he'd been to Boston before), and had to keep calling into his controller for directions!!
Having called the fancy restaurant and put back our reservation by half an hour, we got to our hotel, which seemed ok, but kind of pokey for the megabucks we were paying and above a sports bar that was showing a crunch Red Soxx game, so I feared for our chances of getting any sleep - I worried it'd be Baltimore all over again.
Anyway, we got changed into our glad rags and then ran out of the door. Literally. We had to run through the streets of Boston (which, incidentally, looks really really nice - I immediately liked it, just as I immediately liked New York - it felt like a really cool city) to the restaurant.
On our way, I saw a guy sitting on the steps of the library, working on is MacBook, which I thought said a lot about how genteel Boston must be as a city, that someone is so unafraid of getting mugged that he'll brandish his fancy laptop in full view on the street on a Friday night. But then we rounded the corner and on the steps on the other side were some homeless people, so it would seem that not all Bostonians are as well off.
The restaurant (another recommendation from Jean's boyfriend, Joe) was at the top of a 52 storey tower block, which we could see from far off, but took ages to get to. And then when we did get there, we seemed to have to go through a shopping mall to get into it, which felt very funny in our fancy clothes and really frustrating, as we were dashing through this labyrinthine mall, desperately trying to find the elusive restaurant.
We eventually found the lift and got up to the top floor, but were so late for our reservation that we'd missed out on a table by the window, so sat miles away from the window, with me slightly wondering if anything was going to go right this weekend.
Fortunately the first sip of bellini righted all wrongs and, with the alcohol flowing freely for the rest of the night, we had a really fun, relaxed evening. A man proposed to his girlfriend while we were eating, which was exciting - I've never seen that happen before - and brought back fond memories of when Max proposed on a beach in Sweden exactly three years ago to the day. *swoon*.
After our lishy supper, we repaired to the bar for digestifs and listened to an excellent jazz band, while finally getting to sit by the window and look out at the amazing view. We realised, in not actually knowing Boston at all, the view was slightly lost on us anyway, so it was no great disaster that we didn't get to dine by the window.
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