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.