White Mountains

White?  These mountains look green to me!

Weds 22 May
Concord, NH


We spent today wandering through central New Hampshire, and the beautiful, peaceful White Mountains.  I say "peaceful", because (I say yet again!) it's great to be here in the off-season, or at least at the very, very beginning of the season.  It's obvious that the White Mtns area is equipped to handle massive crowds, and, indeed, our "Driving New England" book says that it's the second-most visited natural area in the country. Great Smoky Mtns National Park is #1.

Started the day by checking out of our hotel, after a meet & greet with the motel's  sweet, sweet pit bull cross, Pumpkin.  All lodgings should have canine ambassadors :-). Next, breakfast and coffee at Dunkin' Donuts (hey, don't judge: we had egg sandwiches, promise!). I bring it up only because we got to observe some fun things:  the taciturn (cranky?). New Hampshireite who took our order, and the locals, inc. a cop, having a spontaneous gab fest in the parking lot!  Ah, small towns....

Gorham features a railroad museum, with a fine collection of rolling stock, and a couple of cool engines.  It's also situated right next to the town library, which delighted us.  Our friends Meredith and Travis must visit here - she's a librarian, and he's a train enthusiast!  Oh, and pilot too. :-).  The library is a beautiful classic building with lovely old rooms.  Were amused, though, when we walked in and were asked "Are you here for the AARP event?"  haha

So, no matter that the clouds were once again really low today - low enough that we could not see the tops of the mountains around Gorham.  And, driving up Mt. Washington, as much as I wanted to do it, wasn't in the cards today, either.  We wouldn't have seen any of the fantastic scenic vistas on the way up, and the weather up top was 0/0.  In fact, for my pilot & weather-geek friends, here's some of the METAR from about 1400Z:  340/24G52 0SM VV000 08/08.

The drive we did take, though, was beautiful. We headed south on highway 16, cutting through the heart of the White Mountains National Forest.  More warnings about moose on the road ("HUNDREDS OF COLLISIONS" sayeth the signs), but today, no moose along the way.  We saw a few fellow humans, but not too many (see comment, above.)

And what we did see in great bounty:  trees, trees, trees.  Evergreens, decidious trees, all together.  Since we were traveling through a National Forest, there were few signs of human intervention.  Just scenic pullouts along the Swift River, and a few campgrounds.  And, lots of trailheads. Lots of opportunity to explore the backwoods!  We stuck to some walkways near the road, but did get down near the river a few times. The Swift is full of boulders, large and small, at least at the viewpoints we visited.  (in fact, one is called "Rocky Point")  Some of the boulders had rock cairns on top of them - somebody hiked out there to leave a calling card, I guess.  It was gorgeous, peaceful, and green green green.

We saw a couple of covered bridges along the way, too!  These were my very first covered bridges, and I liked them a lot.  Nancy also said "OK, my day is complete" after the first one.  Here they are:

At Conway, we turned west along highway 112, to climb up over Kancamagus Pass.  Now, here's m opportunity to tell you all that I love mountains, no matter how big or small.  I'm not so much of a mountain snob to say they have to be over 8,000 ft. tall to be called mountains, or whatever.  So, case in point:  the White Mountains aren't that tall, by Rocky Mtn. standards, at least.  And Kancamagus Pass is only 3,763 ft.  But, it's an impressive climb, and fantastic views from both sides, east and west.  Lovely.


We stopped for lunch in Lincoln, near Loon Mountain Ski Area.  Then, we picked up I-93 to scoot south to Lake Winnipesaukee, next up on the scenic hit parade!  We exited I-93 at New Hampton, and drove to Meredith, NH.  Remember earlier in this blog when I talked about our friend Meredith the librarian?  How about visiting the Meredith Library?!  Which is housed in yet another beautiful old building, and which was getting its spring garden put in today, too.  We explored this library for a bit before heading back out.

We just missed the aviation talk at the Meredith Library!  It was last night

What, no airports today?  Funny you should ask - we visited the Moultonborough Airport shortly after Meredith.  Small, very unpretentious place, with a cute little pilot clubhouse.  And, we were very amused by our GPS's pronounciation of the name.  She (our GPS - we call her Maggie, because she has an English voice and she's bossy)  can't pronounce the letter R very cleanly, for some reason.  It comes out all warbly and funny. So, lots of amusement with words such as AiRRRRport, or whaRRRRRf, and so forth!

Lake Winnipesaukee is big - really big.  We took the side roads to go around the east shore, and were able to catch glimpses here and there.  There is at least one seaplane operator on the lake, but it appears they're not quite open for business yet, because we didn't find them. We did check out one of the beaches, though, and even in the low clouds, it was inviting....

Decided to head for Concord for the night, as we want to be in western Mass. tomorrow night, by way of Vermont, so it seemed like a reasonable choice.  Besides, I like state capitals - my dad was in the Montana State Legislature, and so I grew up visiting capitol buildings.  Found a Best Western, and found a place for dinner downtown, right across the street from the Capitol building itself.  Had dinner in a "gastropub" that has seen its share of visiting politicians - remember that New Hampshire has the early presidential primary, after all. 

Tomorrow - as mentioned - off to the west to Vermont, then down into western Mass.  Hard to believe we have just a few days left on the road, but it's ok. We've both had our moments of forgetting which hotel room is ours, since we're in a different one just about every night.  It'll be nice to cook homecooked meals again.  And, all the other benefits of being home, not least being beholden to our cat, Amelia, again!  But it's sure been fun to be out exploring, and it's not quite over yet.

Cheers,
--Kit and Nancy