C6 Vermont / New England Mountain Tour – from Long Island... with PICS! by Vet

Just returned from a 5-day, 1,325 mile run from Long Island to the top of Vermont / Canadian border, and back.

Car ran great, zero problems, just loads of fun. This car is simply amazing! 

I hardly took any pics this trip was having too much fun running the twisty mountain roads. Above are just a few pics that barely represent the great time my wife and I had with our C6.

Over 1,200 of the 1,325 miles were one lane twisty backroads, packed with hills and curves like one big roller coaster ride. I miss Wyoming and Montana, but the northeast ain't so bad really.

Considering that most of the time the car was being driven quite hard, all hilly twisty roads (mostly 4th or 5th gears, higher rpms and heavy throttle), the roof top was off or the AC was on, plus passenger and luggage, and hot weather, I'd say my average of 24.1 mpg for the trip was not too bad.

First and tenth pics: Lake Willoughby in the northeast section of Vermont beautiful lake, surrounded by great twisty roads. You can make a loop around the lake 5A south along the shore to 5 north to 16 east and back to 5A I have dubbed it the Willoughby-ring ran it several times, great fun.

Fourth pic (the purple house): a really neat B&B up in Derby, VT called Garden of Edie only a stone's throw from the Canadian border beautiful views, extremely peaceful and quiet highly recommended.

Eleventh pic: my wonderful wife and co-pilot  pic taken on the Bridgeport to Port Jefferson ferry ride home.

EDIT more details:

Good ways of getting up north from Long Island:

The Port Jefferson to Bridgeport Ferry is always a good option. As long as your C6 is not lowered, you should not have a problem getting over the ferry ramps. I've used the ferry many times and have never had a problem, though you may want to keep an eye on the car right after load-in and right before load-out to make sure nobody drags a suitcase along your body panels, etc. Car and driver is $44.50 each way. Adult passengers are $13.50 extra per. So a Corvette with both seats occupied will run you $58.00 each way. May seem steep, but when you consider the bridge toll and fuel you'd burn going from eastern L.I. over the Throgs and then back east once up north, the ferry fare does not seem that bad. If you live closer to the Throgs Neck Bridge though, the bridge is the more efficient option. The ferry ride can be fun though, especially on a nice warm day.

http://www.bpjferry.com/

Another good option: Take the Clearview Expressway (big speed trap area, do NOT go over 57 mph if you do not want a ticket, but it's a short run so not a problem), over the Throgs Neck Bridge after the bridge, stay to the right and take the Hutchinson Parkway. Just prior to the Hutch the road can be a bit bumpy but nothing TOO bad. Once on the Hutch the road is acceptable at least northbound. Be sure to avoid rush hour of course early on a Sunday morning is probably ideal.

Then from the Hutch you can take 684 up to I-84 west to the Taconic north or take I-84 east into CT to Route 7 north or Route 8 north. These are all decent ways of getting up into the land of twisties with minimal pain and suffering.

Another option take the Hutch to the Merritt Parkway in CT (15) this is WAY better than taking I-95 in CT I've witnessed too many people die on I-95 the Merritt is smoother and more scenic. Watch for animals early in the morning. You can run the Merritt right to Route 8 north and that will take you up to the scenic areas pretty fast.

A lot of folks like the Taconic since it is fairly scenic, but what I hate about the Taconic are the intersections. You're flying along at 60+ mph and there/ll be an old-timer in a pick-up inches from the side of the roadway, about to leap right in front of you at any moment total death gauntlet I've nearly wet my pants along there quite a few times with people about to pull right in front of me at those tight intersections often little or no swerving room either, if someone jumps one of those intersections, you're in big trouble so I generally do not recommend the Taconic, but I wouldn't completely rule it out either. Speed traps too, beware.

What I've noticed about the Hutch and Throgs Neck Bridge it is a LOT better heading from south to north than from north to south. Whenever I head up north via this route I don't seem top get too angry. Yes, there IS a degree of potholes and rough conditions, but nothing TOO badâ I'd say it's acceptable… and that's coming from a Z51 driver. However, coming back down via that route I'm always very worked up and angry, there are a lot more very bad road conditions in the south direction. I'm usually fuming mad by the time I get into Nassau county, even the Grand Central from that point is very bad, I would generally NOT recommend taking this route back down onto L.I. if possible.

So my new magical plan is as follows: take the Throgs Neck Bridge / Hutch up north from Long Island, and then take the Bridgeport to Port Jefferson Ferry back to Long Island. This combo seems to work perfectly. It helps keep you off the worst roads, and also helps reduce your expense compared to taking the ferry both ways. This is what I plan to do from now on always. It's a proven strategy.

On this past Vermont trip, I did the following and it worked out great. I recommend this overall plan to any Long Island Vette owner:

Day 1: drove up north over the Throgs Neck Bridge, to the Hutchinson, to 684 north, to I-84 east. Once in CT, took route 7 north (scenic road  well, it becomes scenic once you get up north a bit anyway) then we branched off on assorted scenic roads through CT, NY and MA, zig-zagging all around, but ultimately moving northward. Then at the end of day 1, we stayed in southern VT at the Nordic Hills Lodge (Wilmington, VT) considered a bed & breakfast. Great place, super friendly cool people. The Nordic has a nice heated pool and Jacuzzi hot tub, also a game room and other fun stuff... and very inexpensive I think it was just $80 per night. Amazingly delicious breakfast included. Day 1 I had probably put on about 330 miles or so from the Port Jefferson, Long Island area to southern VT.

http://www.nordichillslodge.com/

Day 2: took scenic road 100 from southern VT all the way up to northern VT, zig-zagging in and out of other cool scenic mountain roads I think we ran another 250 miles or so that day, lots of scenic exploring and fun high speed mountain driving. Great scenery. Finally got all the way up to Derby, VT which is in the northeast corner of VT, right on the edge of the Canadian border. We stayed at the Garden of Edie bed & breakfast, beautiful view, really neat place. If you like peace, quiet and beautiful views, go there well worth it. (fourth pic above)

http://freesites.pshift.net/~edie/home.html

Day 3: ran another 220 or so miles around northern VT, hit Lake Willoughby, ran around there a few times, plus hit just about every other scenic road in the area… then made our way down south a bit to Marshfield, VT which is still in the general north eastern section of VT. Stayed at the Fruitlands Bed & Breakfast that night also a nice peaceful place. The photo above of my C6 in the flowers was at the Fruitlands.

http://www.fruitlands.net/

Day 4: headed back down south through VT, back on 100 once again, this time branching off onto assorted scenic backroads that we had not yet hit on the way up. We liked the Nordic Hills B&B so much (in southern VT) that we headed back there and stayed there again. We had run at least 250 miles if not more that day but we got there pretty quick because, well we were really cookin through those mountain roads . The local LEOs did not seem to mind we never saw any. Other than within the small towns (better stick to the limit through those small towns!), there is not much LEO presence at all up in VT, at least not on the mountain backroads. This of course could be a bad thing if you were to ever have a problem out there and cell phones do not seem to work well in the mountains so be careful.

Day 5: we were originally going to fly straight home, but for the sake of not coming home all burnt out and half asleep after another 300 or so miles, we decided to stay one more night in northern CT. So we left southern VT and ran route 112 all the way down through MA to route 23 west through southern MA, then over to 7 south, then found a neat place in northern CT called the Mountain View Inn  in Norfolk. Beautifully decorated Victorian inn and great people highly recommended. There is a neat pub right in town there that has a HUGE beer menu awesome if you like beer, stop in there for dinner.

http://www.mvinn.com/

Day 6: I actually do not even count this as a day because the vacation was over at this point, day 6 merely served as a quick ride home, that's it so day 6, we left the Mountain View Inn in Norfolk CT and shot straight down route 8 to the Bridgeport Ferry was a mere 70 miles exactly took just a hair over an hour remember, route 8 in CT has a good deal of LEO presence, they'll definitely snag you for speeding there so be careful 5 mph over the limit is ok, but anything over that and youre taking a risk. Lots of my motorcycle friends have been snagged along there. The northern section of 8 has a 65 mph speed limit though, so thats cool while it lasts. We caught the 11:30am ferry and were back home in the Port Jefferson area by 1:00 pm. We could have been home way earlier but we decided to hang at the Mountain View Inn that morning in order to enjoy their excellent breakfast.

What was nice about this trip is that we did not put on TOO many miles per day. Usually an average of 250 or so miles per day only. This might appeal to some, especially the significant others that do not want to sit in the car for TOO many hours per day. This is quite a contrast to the 12 hour 750 mile days I am used to when running out to and around Montana, etc.

This is a very fun and feasible trip plan for any Long Island Corvette owner. Even if you do not have 5 or 6 days, you could always skip day 3 and/or day 6 and do this whole 1,300 or so mile thrill run in just 4 solid days. I know I have left out the details of all the scenic side-road zig-zagging I have referred to above, but if you follow any roads designated as scenic in your Rand McNally or other maps, you'll probably hit most of the good stuff. I can list some of the other cool roads when I have time if anyones interested, just ask. Overall though, once you get up to VT, it seems that almost ALL the backroads are fun you almost can't go too wrong once you're up there. This is true Corvette Country open twisty scenic roads do yourself and your C6 a favor and take a trip up there!