Aside from an unplanned detour through Manhattan (and yes, we played "Empire State of Mind" like the dorks we are) the drive was uneventful, if excruciating.
On Tuesday after three hours of sleep at my grandparents' lovely New Hampshire estate we ventured out to Bretton Woods in the hopes of riding some good singletrack.An hour later, hopes shattered, we reemerged from the network of cross country ski trails--rough, weedy doubletrack--and investigated the resort's ski slopes. Two fools on bicycles, we climbed the never-ending and painful service road up the slopes and found nary a trace of the "black diamond bike trails with manmade features." But as we bitched and braked down the mountainboard course (stupid), a ladder ride tucked in the woods caught St Marie's eye and we had finally found singletrack. Tight, rooty, loamy. Very much like the slopes down south. We returned the next day and St Marie applied his big bike to the job of finding more black diamond rides.
While not biking in the great white north, I've been trying to recreate the summers of my youth--cookouts at Camp Jack, swimming in Burns Pond, shows at the Weathervane Theater. Unfortunately, it was difficult to fit six summers' worth of nostalgia into two days...and so we headed north again. 
Pancake breakfast at camp, just like the good old days
Mont-Sainte-Anne was everything I had hoped and more. The venue is crawling with competitors, vendors, and spectators speaking not-American and riding around anything from massive DH rigs to tiny alien trials bikes. We rode a few trails and part of the XC course and I loved it! The mountain is covered in a foot of moon dust and corners are loose as poo. Perhaps racers will escape without experiencing that wonderful east coast mud...but I'm hoping for rain.
Now I understand when people take pictures of Euro-drops and then say "It's a hundred times worse than it looks." Because they are.
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