State #46

Our trip is going by so fast, that if we don't write about New Hampshire in retrospect, we'll leave it out - and it was too good for that, so this is just a short blog to include it in our tally.

Like Vermont, NH is a longish, narrow state, and as we're travelling across, rather than up and down, we travel quickly, and thus were in New Hampshire for less than 24 hours. We're returning there, further south, after we've been to Maine, though, so then we'll be much more informed.

Soon after we crossed the border from Vermont, we came to the little town of Bath, which has the most wonderful covered bridge. We'd seen 3 or 4 other, shorter covered bridges as we drove, but somehow they were always in places where it was impossible to stop, but this time we were able to stop and really enjoy the sight.

Then we discovered that we had stopped outside of "America's oldest general store", so of course we had to have a look through that too - not that we were particularly impressed mind you, as the owner greeted us with "What are you doing here? The tourist season is over"! We, of course, consider ourselves as travellers, not tourists, so we just laughed ... and promptly left, without buying anything.

Our Affordable Travel Club hosts for the evening, Nancy and George, were much more welcoming, when we arrived at their beautiful home overlooking the snow-covered White Mountains through huge windows, as we sat in front of the fire, enjoying local cider (Frances) and black tea (John) the setting sun turned white to the most amazing apricot-pink - it was remarkable!

On Thursday we drove a kilometre (or half a mile, if you're American) to see the Franconia home of poet Robert Frost before we left the area. We then had the choice of two routes to Maine - the scenic route to the south of Mt Washington, or the more direct northern route. Directness won, because the weather had turned grey and drizzly - and were we pleased ... see our next blog to find out why ... !