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Our visit to the Shire
by Christine Lopez and Seth Cohn • 6/16/04
I guess we were both very excited & we woke up at 3 a.m. in January of
2004. We left Yonkers NY by 5 & were in Keene NH by 9 a.m. Being as it was
Sunday morning, the streets were all but empty. Keene has a very small but
quaint downtown square & we enjoyed walking around & then stopping into
a cafe for coffee & a game of chess. I even happened upon my totem animal,
a hawk, who was feeding down a side street from where we were walking.
As it turns out, Keene was having its bridal show this afternoon, so of
course, we had to check it out! It was cool because we got some ideas for our
wedding & we met some local people who are in my line of work.
The Carriage Barn was cute & comfortable. The owner was more than
willing to offer conversation as well as serve some delicious muffins.
Later that evening we met with some people from the Free State Project for
some food & my first real glimpse as to what I was getting myself into. My
impressions were very favorable & I began to feel a strong sense of
community.
The next day we drove to Manchester, but not before taking a few pictures
of Keene during its "rush hour." It just doesn't get too awfully bad in a small
town, but it is a college town & on Monday @ 9 a.m., you're going to see
some cars moving around the square. We also stopped in Peterborough which I had
read was a very arts-minded community. Well, it seems more of an artsy-fartsy
community. It will probably be more of a nice place to come to to see a good
show & get some culture.
Before our next meeting with some more FSP friends at the hotel, we went
out to check out Manchester & Nashua. This is definitely the most populace
area of the state, but it doesn't take very long to be back into the forest.
So, it seems very possible that wherever I can find a job, it won't be
difficult to have a house in the country.
As soon as we got back to the hotel, our new friends were waiting for us.
We got to know each other for a little while before heading over to dinner at
Spatts restaurant. Wow & Yum! I'm so glad that we went off the diet for
this vacation! I had fried shrimp with a baked sweet potato & Seth had a
stuffed fish fillet that was nutty & delicious. Our new friends with the
FSP were warm & open and we had much more to talk about than just politics.
I asked about mud & black fly season & Don Gorman assured me that they
are short lived. As far as the snow & cold go, I'll probably need to just
bundle up & have fun, you know, make snowmen & maybe get involved in
some winter sports.
This was one of the best times I had on our trip. I really enjoyed the
company, conversation & food. We stayed long after our meals were done
& I truly felt like I was taking part in something important.
Then next day Don wanted to take us to Portsmouth for lunch &
adventure. Before leaving Manchester though, I went ahead & followed a
lead that Don's partner Marianne had given me for the Holiday Inn. They are the
main conference center in the Shire & even though they didn't have anything
available in management at this time, it was interesting to see what they had
available as far as meeting rooms & personality. It's going to be hard
leaving the Hilton Eugene. This is where all my friends are & I feel that
I've really grown up here...
Don wanted us to see the "seedy" part of town before our drive to the
coast. It wasn't very bad & if that's the worst it gets, I think we'll be
able to find a nice little place to start a family. From here I saw snow on the
beach for the first time & it was very cold without my hat & gloves on!
It's winter! Portsmouth is another artsy community that is made for tourists.
Don't get me wrong, I liked it well enough, but the housing is very expensive
& unless I find a really good job here, it will be expensive to live here.
So on we went to Dover & the best lobster ever at Newicks Restaurant.
It was juicy & tender & even came with a bib. Seth got a huge plate of
fried seafood & the scallops were phenomenal. Oh, we can't forget the huge
plate of steamer clams that still had the tails on them. Yum!
Having had my little adventure, I had a little nap in the backseat on the
way home. This gave Seth & Don some more time to talk politics & when I
woke up, all I could see were beautifully frosted trees. It's definitely a
winter wonderland here.
From Manchester we drove to Lebanon with a drive thru Concord. Here we had
an interesting experience on our way to dinner. We encountered a road stop
& when we had our turn the officer peeked in & asked if we were
American citizens. "That was weird." We both said. The funny thing was that we
had actually taken a wrong turn & were in Vermont & had to turn around
to get back to the Shire. From then on we had a nice night in with pizza and
VH1.
The next day we had to head back to NY, but we had plenty of time, so we
stopped in a few other NH towns along the way. Since we were so close, we made
a quick stop in Hanover & took some pictures of Dartmouth college.
This day was the coldest we had experienced in our visit. It got UP to 13
degrees f. Although the air was brisk, the countryside we drove thru was
spectacular. The trees are all dotted with snow & frost & I had to take
many, many pictures.
You can see these pictures and more
here.
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Memorial Day Weekend Trip
by K and A • 6/4/04
A and I drove up to New Hampshire (from DC) for Memorial Day weekend,
and it was the best exhausting trip I have ever taken.
First of all, let me say a huge thank you to the folks who welcomed us, and
especially to Dave Mincin who was unbelievably generous with both his time and
his apartment. We drank beer and talked so much that A and I both lost our
voices on the way home.
But onto New Hampshire. We got into Dover late Friday night, so Saturday
was our first opportunity to look around. We joined Cal's group (Merrimack
Valley FSPers) for a lunch meeting in Manchester ($1 beers at
Millie's—thank you, Norm), and hung around talking for a few hours with
early movers and friendly natives. After that, a stop at Hampton Beach, where
we played in the sand, and a lovely drive up the coast to Portsmouth. If I had
any interest at all in living in a city, we would be moving to Portsmouth. We
sat outside at a coffee shop (Breaking New Grounds) on Market Square and
enjoyed the sun.
From there, it was back to Dover for dinner at Newick's, a justifiably
popular seafood place. We met some great people, and PattyE's husband, Bill,
kept me full of fried clams and scallops from his platter. More beer flowed,
and we stayed an hour past closing.
Sunday was driving day. We drove through seven of the ten counties in the
state (Sullivan, Cheshire, and Hillsborough excepted), starting in Dover,
heading up Rt. 153 to 302 through Crawford Notch and back down through
Franconia Notch down along the western side of Winnipesaukee and back down to
Dover. Notes on towns (scratched sporadically in a little notebook) follow:
Rochester: Looked for a bakery for breakfast, and ended up at
Dunkin Donuts instead. Discovered that "regular" coffee there means "cream and
sugar." This may be a NH thing or a Dunkin Donuts thing.
Wakefield: Nice little town. Finally spotted local baked goods
stand as we swallowed the last of our Dunkin Donuts breakfast.
Between Wakefield and Effingham, there's Province Lake. The road is in
Maine, but the lake itself is in New Hampshire. Rough water, but quite a
lovely spot, with tons of trees and mountains in the background. Some houses
on the water and in close proximity. Also a marsh.
Freedom: Beautiful little town, full of white clapboard houses,
with a nice sign that says, "Welcome to Freedom." It was Sunday morning, and
the entire town was clearly in the pretty old church (except for one older
woman I spotted manning a yard sale).
Conway: The town itself was kind of unremarkable—it
reminded me of the medium-sized Virginia towns of my childhood. We did stop at
a farmstand on the north side of town, where we bought fruit, honey, raspberry
bread, etc. A nice old man ran the place, but it was a bit pricier than we
expected.
North Conway: Hippy outdoorsman kind of town, which has its good
and bad points. Movie theater, bookstore, crafts fair, EMS (Eastern Mountain
Sports) store, and places to eat. We stopped for lunch at Flatbreads, which
offers pizza out of a wood-burning oven. It was very good. Then we stopped in
at the bookstore, and with his purchase, A got a receipt that said, "No
Sales Tax 0.00." Only real turn-off was the traffic—there was actually at
traffic jam in the middle of town. It took us way too long to go a few blocks.
Partly the craft show, but it's only the beginning of the tourist season up
there, so...
Plymouth: Cute college town, with a nice little grocery store
across from the college. They also have a movie theater, and a small but
attractive downtown area. (Note: if you're dumb enough to stand in the middle
of the road, cars will actually stop for you here.) We tried unsuccessfully to
find the Bridgeside Diner, recommended by one of our guidebooks.
Tamworth: Tamworth had two stores in town, one called the
General Store, and the other called the Other Store. There was also an inn and
a public school. Someone in town apparently owned a backhoe with which he was
helping a neighbor plant a tree in front of his house. It looked pretty, but
didn't feel quite right.
Meredith: We ate dinner at a restaurant on Lake Winnepesaukee.
Sat outside and ordered clam chowder, a lobster roll, a crab cake, and beer.
Pretty developed town, so not for us, but we'd visit again.
Gilmanton: Gilmanton itself is a pretty little town, and the
area around it is very hilly, so the views can be spectacular. Up by Loon
Pond, we drove on a highway that was designated as such in 1765.
Northwood: Not sure, but we thought we smelled a paper factory.
Worth checking that out.
Headed back to Dover to pick up Dave, and then met Joel (an early mover
from Florida) in Manchester for "the biggest fireworks display ever in southern
New Hampshire." They weren't kidding, and while the crowd was rowdy and drunk,
everyone was also startlingly friendly. Big fair with four fried dough stands
and a bunch of amusements (coin-toss-for-large-panda kind of things).
On Monday, we slowly headed home, driving from Dover to Concord, and then
west across Vermont to New York. On the way we drove through:
Concord: Ate at a bagel shop on the main drag, about a block
from the capitol. The capitol building is exactly what you'd imagine, and the
AARP and the NH Republicans have both set up shop directly across the street.
While we ate, I noticed two kids, about 8 probably, who had ridden over to the
bagel place on their scooters. They had lunch, unchained the scooters, and
headed for home—all without adult supervision. That's an awfully nice
thing to see in a state capital.
Hopkinton: Another pretty place. This is where we first noticed
the signs that forbid parking on city streets from midnight to 6AM, November 1
– May 1. Must be for snow plowing.
Henniker: Now this is important: if you have a map that tells
you that you can get back to Rt. 202 on The Oaks St, do not listen to your map.
It's a dead end. Anyway, we saw two inns, a restaurant, and an elementary
school. A very pretty place.
Bennington: Bennington definitely does have a paper mill,
although we didn't smell it. Probably not working on holidays.
Dublin: Very hilly, and a consolidated school district. Home of
Yankee Magazine, and a pretty view of Mt. Monadnock across Dublin Lake.
There's a place called "Friendly Farm," with a petting zoo. We noticed that
the temperature dropped 5 degrees between Concord and Dublin.
Keene: Keene also has the strange parking prohibition. The
circle downtown was nice, and I could see the small-but-upscale-ish appeal, but
it was big enough to have some suburbia issues, which we're looking forward to
getting away from.
From there it was out Rt. 9 and into Vermont, which looked surprisingly
poor by comparison. Again, thanks to everyone who welcomed us, fed us, guided
us, answered our questions, and generally rolled out the red carpet. We
thought this trip would be an introduction to New Hampshire (which it was, to
some extent), but it turned out to be as much an introduction to the truly
amazing people who are part of the Free State Project. I had hoped that FSPers
would make good neighbors, to each other and to NH natives, and now I'm sure
that we will.
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