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Heading South

Upon leaving Acadia, we headed back south towards New Hampshire. Some friends of ours from Intown, the Carrolls, were spending a week of vacation at Lake Winnipesaukee and had invited us to join them. It was a very tentative plan and although we hadn't gotten a hold of them yet, but Kate had left a message, so we headed in that general direction.

We hadn't spent that much time in the White Mountains, so we decided to take the scenic route and drive the Kangamangus Highway. It was beautiful. We got out at one point along the Swift River at the Rocky Gorge Scenic Area and took a bit of a stroll.

When we hopped back in the car, I really wanted to see a moose. We had seen plenty of signs alerting us to watch out for moose, so I prayed that we would see one. I kept my eyes peeled for one and within five minutes, I did! It was in the woods eating, with its head down, but we turned around to go back to look at it. A number of cars followed our lead in stopping to observe.
The sunset that night was gorgeous, so we stopped to take some more pictures.We still had not heard from the Carrolls, so we headed south to Lake Winnipesaukee anyway, seeing a state park on the map where we thought we could camp anyway. Lake Winnipesaukee was horrible. Wretchedly over grown and touristy, much like Gatlinburg or Panama City Beach. We drove through tons of traffic in an attempt to find this state park. Alas, the state park wound up having only RV camping, so we headed back in the direction we had come where I had noticed a couple of private camp grounds. The one that looked most promising was full so we headed to the one that look least promising.

And it fulfilled my expectations. After registering, we wondered if the couple who owned the campground had ever spent a night camping in their lives. In what seemed like an attempt to be helpful to two lone girls, they put us at a campsite far, far away from the other tent sites, far, far away from the bathrooms, very close to the RVs, and right under a street lamp. We moved, at least away from the street lamp to a flat campsite. Not until later, after dinner, when we began the hike to the bathroom for the first time did we realize how many open campsites there were close to the bathroom, on level ground.

Showering was another interesting adventure. In an attempt to conserve water, the shower heads were fitted with those automatic turn off faucets that you have to hold down to get the water to come on. These are rather a pain when washing your hands in the sink, but even worse for a shower. My shower head stayed on for about 15 seconds every time you depressed it. I wound up just holding it down with one hand the entire time. I doubt there was much water conservation going on.

Before leaving, someone had warned me that New Hampshire was the buggiest place they had ever been, but we did not experience this until that night. The bugs were awful- trying to eat dinner was miserable, as bugs were constantly landing in our mac and cheese. Climbing into the tent was a welcome relief. Leaving Saturday morning to head back to the general vicinity of Boston was an even more welcome relief.

Labels: travel

posted by CP @ 11:14 AM 0 thoughts