Saturday, 30 Sept, our last full day in New Hampshire

It apparently rained, hard, sometime during the night or early this morning.  Everything is very wet and drippy.  I'm not sure if its finished, because it is seriously overcast.
We enjoyed our coffee and then hit the road. After all, we have a 2 hour drive.  
It was a pretty drive even though it was raining for a good part of it.  Really it was just misty. We were listening to a book called Identicals.  Its about two girls who were identical twins and best of friends until their parents decided to get divorced their senior year.  Their parents could only afford one each, so the girls did rock-scissor-paper to decide which would go off to live with their father and which would stay with their mother. So one grew up on Nantucket Island with their Mom and the other on Martha's Vineyard with their Father.  It is an interesting book.
We arrived at our destination and I was thrilled.  I was afraid the drive was going to be for nothing. But, the place was cute and it was packed.

I didn't take any pictures inside unfortunately, but it was really fun. They say it is the same size as the one in Weston, which is the original store.  

This one has a lot of sections.  The kitchen section, the kids section, the sleep ware, men's ware, women's ware;  make up, bath, dips, cookies, candies, soups, it was so fun.  Old time stuff in every section.  You got to taste and sample everything.

Rob and I split up but came back together on occasion and swapped holding Bella.  To many people for the poor pup.  We were there probably a good hour and a half. I thought Rob and Boo were outside, so after I made my purchases I went out but didn't find them.  Then Rob texted me and he was still inside. I told him I was done and outside.

  We were hungry and decided it would be easier to get something here rather than somewhere else so we each ordered a sandwich and we split a soup to go.  We figured as long as we were down here we might as well go through some more awesome Vermont towns.

Grafton was really pretty.  It is just an old community where the people have restored their home to how they originally looked because they love the look and the small town community. It is very cool and their was a wedding going on in a meadow.

The Grafton Inn

We went through a couple other cute towns and then went on home.   

We stopped in at Walmart on the way home and got some groceries.   Walmart was the place of choice because we were out of doggie treats and Bella was not very happy.  

We got home around 7:30.  We watched a movie and ate left overs and went to bed.

We are moving on to Maine tomorrow and it is going to be a long driving day. 

Friday, 29 September; New Hampshire.

It is deliciously chilly this morning.  There is a slight breeze, but no wind.  I want a chill day today.  Chill and heal.  I have a sore thigh and a bruised rib I think.  I was wearing a sports bra yesterday while biking.  I had my phone in it so I could get to it easily to take pictures.  I fell hard at one point first landing on my left thigh and then landed on my chest.  That drove my phone into my chest and that's how I got bruised.  
Anyway, after the activities of the last two days I decided today I would take it easy.
Rob went off to the gym leaving Bella and I home to work on the blog and get bored.
She and I went out for a long walk. We walked down a trail to the pond and then around it.  We came up one trail and then down another and then up a third one.  We walked through the whole campground and then back to the rig.  It was nice out.  Chilly, but nice in the sun so I decided to sit outside with my back to the sun and read.  
I am reading the book called "Maria" which is written by and about the Nun, Maria, who the Sound of Music is based on.  As it turns out the family is real, they settled in Vermont and she wrote the book and the screen play that the movie was based on.  She also wrote another called or about the Von Trapp Family Singers.  I'd like to read it as well.
Anyway, I was sitting out and waiting for Rob.  When he got back I told him I'd like to go shopping.  One of the places I want to go is to the Vermont Country Store.  There are two of them it turns out.  One of them, the original one is in Weston, Vermont.  Mom and I went there several years ago and it was a really cool place.  But, it is almost three hours from here.
The second one is in Rockingham, VT it is almost 2 hours from here.
Rob also wanted to go visit Lake Winnipesaukee.  He says there is a 2 mile hike you can do around the lake.  It is only an hour's drive away .  It was already 2:00 so we decided to go there. While he took a shower I fixed us sandwiches. We ate then left.
We drove down Why 93 and hit 175 toward the lake.  In a little town called Holderness our fuel light came on so we had to stop for fuel.  We pulled into a gas station and while there I noticed that everything was saying "On Golden Pond"  so I looked up where the movie took place and sure enough, it was here.  The author grew up on another lake, but the film took place on Squam Lake here in Holderness. Apparently they rented a physician's summer lake cabin and did a little remodeling, to include adding a second floor.  The contract said they were supposed to return it to its original condition when the filming was over, but the Physician asked them to leave the second floor.  We were on a mission to go to the other lake, but I would have loved to scout out the town more and find more about the filming of the movie.  Perhaps on the way back.

We continued on down the road and got to the lake.  It is really big.  It turns out that the place Rob wanted to go to do the hike was actually on an island and we couldn't figure out how to get to it.  So we went to a cute little town called Weirs Beach.  I had read something about it when I was first looking up things to do in Vermont and New Hampshire and I circled it on the map, but then I couldn't remember what it was that was significant about it.

It was/is a cute little water-front town.  We stopped at the park and let Bella run around a bit.  She was super antsy in the car.

 They have train rides and cruises available......

but this time of year only on the weekends.

We walked along the waterfront and their were darling old homes that now seem to be turned into various organizations and/or B and Bs

The town was actually quite dead.  In fact, one of the big restaurants had a neon sign rotating ..Closed for the Season, Thanks for a great summer, see you in 2018.  It was crazy weird.
We decided to drive around the whole lake, which we did.  We came upon something called "Castle in the Clouds".  I read it off the map out loud and Rob said he had read something about it and had wanted to go check it out.  So we did
Unfortunately it was about 5:40 and the gates were going to close at 6 pm.  We drove up to the Carriage house and there was a gift shop, but when I looked in the window of the gift shop they were already counting the till.  Rob dropped Bella and I off and went back to park the car.  While waiting for him I decided to go check out the Carriage house.  It was lovely, but empty.  I mean really empty.  The door was unlocked so I went in.  There was a room with a fireplace and paintings on the wall, a darkened bar (I could have reached over and grabbed anything I wanted) and patio dining.  I had looked out the window at the patio and was looking at the paintings when Rob came in.  He went to the patio, opened the door and went out.  I followed him.  It was a beautiful view.  The big lake is full of little islands and we were looking over probably 20 of them.  

That is a giant Basil Bush I am checking out.  Yum!!

When we went to go back inside we discovered the door was locked.  We were locked out on a 2nd story patio with stone wall edges and wrought  iron rail.  Oh my! We immediately started looking for a place where we could safely jump down and were not finding any.  Finally on the right edge there was a place that looked maybe about 5 feet rather than 10 feet everywhere else.  Rob said he was going to jump down there and then go around and open the door.  It looked safe enough and besides, we didn't really have a choice.  We had already knocked on the door several times and no one came.
So he successfully jumped, strolled and rescued me.  
We realized that this was the carriage house and that the Castle was further up the hill.  We really wanted to go and check it out, but it was getting very close to them locking the gate so we had to leave.  Unfortunately I do not believe we will be coming back.
We continued our journey around the lake and back to the town of Holderness.  But, when we got there it was getting dark already and we had no idea where to go to find anything about "On Golden Pond".  Sadly, we had to keep going and we went on home.  It was a fun late afternoon exploration.
Oh we stopped along the way at a road-side food stand and got a Lobster-roll.  It is sort of like a po-boy made with 4 oz of lobster and nothing else.  It was $17. with tax.  It was ridiculous and not delicious.  It came with fries which were good.  
When we got back Rob grilled Italian Sausages on the Bar-B. We watched a movie, then I watched Blue Bloods and went to bed.

Thursday, September 28th; Mountain Biking in East Burke, Vermont

It is finally Fall!  The temperature has dropped about 20 degrees and it is windy this morning.  Fall leaves are dropping like crazy and on being blown about by the wind.  It is beautiful.  I really am ready for the cooler weather of fall.
Today we are going mountain biking.
Of course poor Bella cannot come with us because the terrain is too rough for her to be in her basket (she gets bounced), and I have a tendency to crash which would not be so safe for her. She, of course, is sensing this and is not at all happy about it.
We are right across from the doggie park and there were several dogs in their playing.  Bella was making little whining noises so I took her over to play with them.  
After that we loaded up and headed out.  We drove to a place called East Burke.  It is back in Vermont.  It was about an hour away.  It is a cute little town and apparently quite popular for its mountain biking. They are called the Kingdom Trails and there are 150 miles of them.

We saw this sign on the way and thought it was pretty funny!

 This is a really cute cafe and antique store.  They had some darling furniture that I would love to have a house furnished with.

Apparently the trails are on private property, and are maintained and managed by Q Burke Mountain Resort.  So, we had to buy passes in order to ride them.  The pass had to be affixed to our bikes.  Interesting.  

So we hit the trails.  There were roots and rocks and twists and turns.

Probably difficult to see, but this is a steep downhill dip fallowed by a steep uphill climb with roots crossing it.

I can do stuff like the above just fine;  however....

This is called a ladder bridge.  It is about a foot and a half wide.

These stupid ladder bridges..if they are longer than about 4 feet I end up riding right off the edge of them and crashing.  I did so on this one.  I cannot ride a straight path.  If possible, I ride along the side of them.  If not possible I sometimes walk my bike across them which is also a struggle because they are barely wide enough for me and the bike.  Crazy.

It was a really fun trail that went through the woods some and through farm land and meadows and along some dirt roads.

We went on one section called Heaven's Bench.  It was a mowed path up a hill and at the top, all by itself, was a bench.

Toward the end of the ride we came out at an Inn which was beautiful.  It was also an Animal Sanctuary. 

From here we rode down a very steep paved road and then back on one last banked side-winder trail that was scary but a lot of fun. 

And then we were back in town.  It was a good thing to, because I was really starting to get cold and weary.  I needed to be done.  We rode a total of 15 miles and it took us 4 hours and that was only stopping for quick photos or to pick myself up after crashing.

We went into the darling cafe and got a sandwich to split on the drive back home.  

When we got home I took a good hot shower to both clean up and warm up.  It is now in the low 60s and is supposed to get into the 50s tonight.  

We watched the beginning of the Thursday night Football.  It has been so controversial with the players kneeling during the National Anthem.  At first it was to protest the treatment of blacks by police across the nation, but then Trump shot off his mouth calling them "son-a-bitches" and demanding them be fired.  Which is not his call, but he's a child; and then it became a unified protest against him.  That's where it was last Sunday.  I was very happy to see in tonights game that both teams, coaches, and even in some cases owners were standing, with locked arms united. Nobody was kneeling.  I was happy to see that.

I saw a wonderful post on Facebook earlier this evening (unfortunately I cannot find it now) where a mother asked her daughter why football players kneel on the field during the game.  She said because someone is hurt and they are all praying and hoping they will be ok.  Then she asked why they kneel during the National Anthem and she said maybe it's because the Nation is hurt and they are praying and hoping it will be ok.  I loved it.