27th Anniversary
October 24, 2021
State of New Hampshire
City of Whitefield
Mountain View Grand Resort
Day One
Zachary, Benjamin and Andrew got up for breakfast before school and wished us well as we headed off to the airport to catch our morning flight to Boston. All the days of preparation to get out of town were done and we were on our way to our 27th anniversary destination, New Hampshire. Flying to the east coast is always a full day trip and by the time we got our rental car and had started the drive to New Hampshire it was after 6PM eastern time. Our first night stay was in Portsmouth, less than 1.5 hours from Boston, and after listening to the beginning of this year's Poirot mystery, “Five Little Pigs,” we arrived at the Sailmaker’s House hungry and ready to find a place to have dinner. After navigating a steep set of stairs up to our room we got settled and then took a walk down the street to the Clipper Tavern. Some poutine and fresh fish and chips hit the spot for our first taste of New Hampshire. After we ate, we walked through the market square of Portsmouth peering in the closed shop windows before retiring for the night.
Day Two
The day dawned sunny and mild, and we walked to Popovers on the Square for breakfast. Although the concept of popovers was new to us and intriguing, we both opted for breakfast sandwiches which were very tasty. After breakfast we walked around Portsmouth and past the John Paul Jones House until we came upon the African Burying Ground Memorial. This memorial to African burials discovered under this part of Portsmouth was very well done. It had a granite slab with a man and woman on opposite sides. Then there was a petition for freedom that was inlaid in a ribbon of stone winding down the hill to where some representative silhouettes stood. We were happy to have come across this and been able to learn about this part of Portsmouth’s history. We continued our walk past Memorial Bridge, Prescott Park and the Sheafe Warehouse looking across the Piscataqua River at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (which is actually in Maine). One interesting piece of history we learned on our walk was how they used to “careen” ships (beach them on their side). They would attach lines to the masts and roll the vessels to one side so that the opposite side was accessible at low tide to clean and repair the hulls. They eventually built marine railways to use steam power to pull ships out of the water. Our walk looped back to the Sailmaker’s House as we enjoyed looking at the New England style of architecture of many of the old buildings.
We packed up the car and did little sightseeing in the area including Pulpit Rock Tower in Rye which is a similar WWII era lookout tower to the ones we had explored in Delaware years ago, Fort Stark, a defensive battery built in the early 20th century to look like a ship, a park where Julie posed in a painter’s frame and Fort Constitution where in 1774 Paul Revere had ridden to warn the town of New Castle about the British coming to take the powder from the fort. The capture of the fort by Patriots was significant as one of the first overt acts of the American Revolutionary War and the only battle to take place in the state of New Hampshire. One of the highlights was our next stop, the submarine USS Albacore, affectionately know as the submarine in a ditch. We took a self-guided audio tour through the submarine which was very informative as we climbed through the hatches and small passageways of the boat. We finished off the first half of the day with some shopping in Portsmouth (Julie tried on some vintage style hats and got a new purse) and lunch at Portsmouth Brewery (we had the delicious Left Hand Nitro Milk Stout and tried a bourbon from a Maine distillery right across the river, Wiggly Bridge).
We headed north toward our destination for the next two nights and after an hour came to the Wright Museum of World War II in Wolfeboro. This museum is small but well done and focuses on the American home front experience of the war; everything from victory gardens, a room dedicated to each year of the war (1939-1945) and what was popular at home that year to the contribution of women in factories. Throw in a few tanks and jeeps and it was a pleasant stop on our journey. Another hour or so driving through the White Mountains brought us to the Mountain View Grand Resort. We checked-in to the Presidential Suite which was larger than our first house (and the first hotel room we have stayed in that had a guest bathroom). After relaxing for a bit and enjoying the amazing views from our room, we dressed for our anniversary dinner which was in the 1865 Wine Cellar (yes, in the wine cellar). We enjoyed good food, conversation and wine surrounded by hundreds of bottles of red and white wine and champagne. Happy Anniversary indeed!
Day Three
Expecting rain on this trip we were again pleasantly surprised to have a partly cloudy but beautiful sunrise over the White Mountains. Our first stop of the day was at Polly’s Pancake Parlor for breakfast. A New Hampshire landmark since 1938 there were few things that made it amazing. First, they have 6 different types of pancake flour that they mill on-site. You can choose to have some of each and then even add-in different things like berries and nuts. Then it’s your server who goes and cooks your pancakes. Then they have their own maple syrup and maple cream to add on top. Oh wow, the pancakes were all wonderful and we even ended up buying some of the flour to bring home.
With full stomachs we were off to the Mount Washington Cog Railway. The clouds were sitting low on Mount Washington (the highest point in New Hampshire, known for its wild weather) so we weren’t sure we were going to be able to have any views as we traveled up the mountain. The summit was already closed for the season so we only made it up to about 5200’ but by the time we got up there we were above the clouds. Going up we learned all about the cog railway. First opened in 1896 it is driven by cogs under the engine that mesh into a plate in the middle of the rails. The engine (bio-diesel this time of year, steam in the summer) pushes the passenger coach up the mountain and the two are not even attached. Going down the coach just rest on the engine and if the cog on the engine were to fail, the coach has its own braking system. The railway averages a 25% grade on the mountain with a 32% section in one area. Being at that angle is very disconcerting at times. The craziest thing we heard was about the workers who used “slide boards” to get down the mountain. The boards would ride on the cog track in the middle on the rails and the record slide from the summit to the base (3 miles) was 2 minutes and 45 seconds.
We were going to go to Littleton, NH for lunch, but still full of pancakes we decided to just go see the town and not actually eat. There were two primary reasons for visiting Littleton, Pollyanna and Chutter’s. Pollyanna, a book written by Eleanor H. Porter from Littleton focuses on the title character whose goal is for everyone to “Be Glad.” Littleton has embraced this as The Glad Town and it is a friendly place with a cheery statue of Pollyanna in front of the town library. Chutter’s is a candy store with the Guinness Books of World Records record for the longest candy counter. Boy did they have a lot of candy. We made a few purchases (mainly for Zachary’s birthday) and on the way back to the car passed Vulgar Display of Poutine, which is a poutine restaurant with a delicious sounding menu. If only we hadn’t still been so full!
Dinner this evening was on the Café Lafayette Dinner Train. We had not eaten on a dinner train since before Jackson was born. Our table was in the dome of the dining car and we had beautiful views of the New Hampshire mountains and rivers as we rolled through the countryside enjoying our meal. When we got back to the Mountain View Grand we enjoyed a nightcap and extra dessert before retiring for the night.
Day Four
Another sunny day! We saw no rain on the entire trip although some of the mountain tops looked like they got some snow Saturday night. We decided on a staple east coast breakfast (Dunkin Donuts!!) while we drove to our first stop of the day, the town of Meredith. Meredith is the home of Bob Montana who created the Archie Andrews character in the comics. There was a fun statue of Archie in the town square sitting on a park bench and we both took pictures with him. Our next activity was an active outdoor ride/tour with Scenic Railriders. This a tour along a 6 mile stretch of abandoned railway where you pedal your own rail bike. It was a clear and sunny, but quite chilly, fall day and we thoroughly enjoyed our ride. Sections were cold when we were in the shade of the forest or riding into the breeze, but the sun warmed us again quickly. Riding the rails like that gives you a unique perspective being a train and still clicking and clacking down the tracks (crossing roads was fun too)!
Alas, this was our last adventure for this anniversary, but we did finish our Poirot mystery on the way back to the airport and the story turned out to be another satisfying tale from Agatha Christie. It had us guessing the whole time. Sunday night found us flying back against the jet stream, home to our boys and Zachary’s Monday 10th birthday.
October 24, 2021
State of New Hampshire
City of Whitefield
Mountain View Grand Resort
Day One
Zachary, Benjamin and Andrew got up for breakfast before school and wished us well as we headed off to the airport to catch our morning flight to Boston. All the days of preparation to get out of town were done and we were on our way to our 27th anniversary destination, New Hampshire. Flying to the east coast is always a full day trip and by the time we got our rental car and had started the drive to New Hampshire it was after 6PM eastern time. Our first night stay was in Portsmouth, less than 1.5 hours from Boston, and after listening to the beginning of this year's Poirot mystery, “Five Little Pigs,” we arrived at the Sailmaker’s House hungry and ready to find a place to have dinner. After navigating a steep set of stairs up to our room we got settled and then took a walk down the street to the Clipper Tavern. Some poutine and fresh fish and chips hit the spot for our first taste of New Hampshire. After we ate, we walked through the market square of Portsmouth peering in the closed shop windows before retiring for the night.
Day Two
The day dawned sunny and mild, and we walked to Popovers on the Square for breakfast. Although the concept of popovers was new to us and intriguing, we both opted for breakfast sandwiches which were very tasty. After breakfast we walked around Portsmouth and past the John Paul Jones House until we came upon the African Burying Ground Memorial. This memorial to African burials discovered under this part of Portsmouth was very well done. It had a granite slab with a man and woman on opposite sides. Then there was a petition for freedom that was inlaid in a ribbon of stone winding down the hill to where some representative silhouettes stood. We were happy to have come across this and been able to learn about this part of Portsmouth’s history. We continued our walk past Memorial Bridge, Prescott Park and the Sheafe Warehouse looking across the Piscataqua River at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (which is actually in Maine). One interesting piece of history we learned on our walk was how they used to “careen” ships (beach them on their side). They would attach lines to the masts and roll the vessels to one side so that the opposite side was accessible at low tide to clean and repair the hulls. They eventually built marine railways to use steam power to pull ships out of the water. Our walk looped back to the Sailmaker’s House as we enjoyed looking at the New England style of architecture of many of the old buildings.
We packed up the car and did little sightseeing in the area including Pulpit Rock Tower in Rye which is a similar WWII era lookout tower to the ones we had explored in Delaware years ago, Fort Stark, a defensive battery built in the early 20th century to look like a ship, a park where Julie posed in a painter’s frame and Fort Constitution where in 1774 Paul Revere had ridden to warn the town of New Castle about the British coming to take the powder from the fort. The capture of the fort by Patriots was significant as one of the first overt acts of the American Revolutionary War and the only battle to take place in the state of New Hampshire. One of the highlights was our next stop, the submarine USS Albacore, affectionately know as the submarine in a ditch. We took a self-guided audio tour through the submarine which was very informative as we climbed through the hatches and small passageways of the boat. We finished off the first half of the day with some shopping in Portsmouth (Julie tried on some vintage style hats and got a new purse) and lunch at Portsmouth Brewery (we had the delicious Left Hand Nitro Milk Stout and tried a bourbon from a Maine distillery right across the river, Wiggly Bridge).
We headed north toward our destination for the next two nights and after an hour came to the Wright Museum of World War II in Wolfeboro. This museum is small but well done and focuses on the American home front experience of the war; everything from victory gardens, a room dedicated to each year of the war (1939-1945) and what was popular at home that year to the contribution of women in factories. Throw in a few tanks and jeeps and it was a pleasant stop on our journey. Another hour or so driving through the White Mountains brought us to the Mountain View Grand Resort. We checked-in to the Presidential Suite which was larger than our first house (and the first hotel room we have stayed in that had a guest bathroom). After relaxing for a bit and enjoying the amazing views from our room, we dressed for our anniversary dinner which was in the 1865 Wine Cellar (yes, in the wine cellar). We enjoyed good food, conversation and wine surrounded by hundreds of bottles of red and white wine and champagne. Happy Anniversary indeed!
Day Three
Expecting rain on this trip we were again pleasantly surprised to have a partly cloudy but beautiful sunrise over the White Mountains. Our first stop of the day was at Polly’s Pancake Parlor for breakfast. A New Hampshire landmark since 1938 there were few things that made it amazing. First, they have 6 different types of pancake flour that they mill on-site. You can choose to have some of each and then even add-in different things like berries and nuts. Then it’s your server who goes and cooks your pancakes. Then they have their own maple syrup and maple cream to add on top. Oh wow, the pancakes were all wonderful and we even ended up buying some of the flour to bring home.
With full stomachs we were off to the Mount Washington Cog Railway. The clouds were sitting low on Mount Washington (the highest point in New Hampshire, known for its wild weather) so we weren’t sure we were going to be able to have any views as we traveled up the mountain. The summit was already closed for the season so we only made it up to about 5200’ but by the time we got up there we were above the clouds. Going up we learned all about the cog railway. First opened in 1896 it is driven by cogs under the engine that mesh into a plate in the middle of the rails. The engine (bio-diesel this time of year, steam in the summer) pushes the passenger coach up the mountain and the two are not even attached. Going down the coach just rest on the engine and if the cog on the engine were to fail, the coach has its own braking system. The railway averages a 25% grade on the mountain with a 32% section in one area. Being at that angle is very disconcerting at times. The craziest thing we heard was about the workers who used “slide boards” to get down the mountain. The boards would ride on the cog track in the middle on the rails and the record slide from the summit to the base (3 miles) was 2 minutes and 45 seconds.
We were going to go to Littleton, NH for lunch, but still full of pancakes we decided to just go see the town and not actually eat. There were two primary reasons for visiting Littleton, Pollyanna and Chutter’s. Pollyanna, a book written by Eleanor H. Porter from Littleton focuses on the title character whose goal is for everyone to “Be Glad.” Littleton has embraced this as The Glad Town and it is a friendly place with a cheery statue of Pollyanna in front of the town library. Chutter’s is a candy store with the Guinness Books of World Records record for the longest candy counter. Boy did they have a lot of candy. We made a few purchases (mainly for Zachary’s birthday) and on the way back to the car passed Vulgar Display of Poutine, which is a poutine restaurant with a delicious sounding menu. If only we hadn’t still been so full!
Dinner this evening was on the Café Lafayette Dinner Train. We had not eaten on a dinner train since before Jackson was born. Our table was in the dome of the dining car and we had beautiful views of the New Hampshire mountains and rivers as we rolled through the countryside enjoying our meal. When we got back to the Mountain View Grand we enjoyed a nightcap and extra dessert before retiring for the night.
Day Four
Another sunny day! We saw no rain on the entire trip although some of the mountain tops looked like they got some snow Saturday night. We decided on a staple east coast breakfast (Dunkin Donuts!!) while we drove to our first stop of the day, the town of Meredith. Meredith is the home of Bob Montana who created the Archie Andrews character in the comics. There was a fun statue of Archie in the town square sitting on a park bench and we both took pictures with him. Our next activity was an active outdoor ride/tour with Scenic Railriders. This a tour along a 6 mile stretch of abandoned railway where you pedal your own rail bike. It was a clear and sunny, but quite chilly, fall day and we thoroughly enjoyed our ride. Sections were cold when we were in the shade of the forest or riding into the breeze, but the sun warmed us again quickly. Riding the rails like that gives you a unique perspective being a train and still clicking and clacking down the tracks (crossing roads was fun too)!
Alas, this was our last adventure for this anniversary, but we did finish our Poirot mystery on the way back to the airport and the story turned out to be another satisfying tale from Agatha Christie. It had us guessing the whole time. Sunday night found us flying back against the jet stream, home to our boys and Zachary’s Monday 10th birthday.