Lancaster, NH

Went back to the ER here in Lancaster today. Saw a different ER doctor who did a good exam. He came up with the same diagnosis - sciatiac nerve. He has me on pain medicine, anti-inflammatory, and muscle relaxer. I should get a good night sleep tonight! The ER doctor said if I took all the meds before I go to bed, he would guarantee a good nights sleep. Sounds great to me.

We are going to stay here in Lancaster, NH until next Sunday or Monday. Where we are going from here is still questionable. We will have to re-examine our time since we are due to be in Dayton, Ohio around the 27th of August. I still want to go to Maine and visit some of the coast line and have a lobster. We will see. I guess it will depend on how I'm feeling and how well I can ride.

The campground is being great with the rates for us. Today they charged us the PA rate of $17.50. This even though they have a rule of one night per stay! Tomorrow we will pay up for five more nights which they have a special for - $105.00. Pay for three get two free. $21.00 per night for full hook-up isn't to bad. I'm hoping that next Sunday we can get the PA rate again for that night. Am I hoping for to much?

One bright side is that Lancaster has a Farmer's Market in town on Saturday and the local UMC is having a Chicken Pie supper on Saturday night. We'll be there.

I think we will also attempt to do the Notch Train ride that we had to cancel this last week.

Again, we will see.

We have no cell phone service here - to far from the interstate and in the valley between mountains. At lease I do have the internet.

Come back soon to see where we head.

Wasn't On Our Schedule!

Yesterday we were scheduled to take the "Notch Train" from Conway, NH. God had other plans for us, or should I say me. We spent several early morning hours at the local Emergency Room. During the day Thursday, I noticed that my right hip and leg were beginning to hurt. By Thursday night is was very painful and I figured I had a pinched nerve. Friday day and night I self doctored with Advil and Tylenol. Didn't help much at all. By 6 AM Saturday morning I knew that I needed something more potent. The diagnosis was a pinched sciatica. Yesterday after getting back home, I slept most of the day. That felt good after two nights of not very much sleep. Woke up this morning feeling much better so of course I over did and now it's bothering me again! When will I learn? Anyway, we are grounded until the hip/leg pain goes away as it bothers me to sit for very long and riding in the truck is out for now.

At least we have a pretty view here at Rogers Campground.

Here are a couple of pictures of our site.




This is a view of Mt. Washington from our dining window. Wish my camera had a better zoom. You can see the observatory with binoculars along with the train and auto's on the road going up. We are about 20 miles from the mountain.



These pictures are more of the mountain range to the right and left of Mt. Washington.



What a beautiful day it is. Temperature at 12 noon is 70 degrees with clear skies. Supposed to be in the high 50's tonight. At least we are grounded in a cool place!

Mt. Washington Cog RR

We are parked at Roger's Campground, Lancaster, NH. It's a very large campground - over 200 sites, but it isn't even half full. It is a PA campground, but limited to one night only. I'll post a picture of our site later - haven't taken one yet. If the sky is clear you can see mountains in almost every direction. Unfortunately the sky isn't cooperating very well. Last night we had a rain storm pass over the mountains. Got several pictures of this double rainbow. It was so pretty and looked so close.



Today we drove to Mt. Washington, New Hampshire's highest mountain at I think around 6400 feet, give or take a few. We opted to take the Cog Railroad over the auto road up the mountain. We were told by a camper in Vermont, that we couldn't drive the truck up the road since it was a dully. We didn't check that out because we had already decided to take the train.

I will say that it was a once in a lifetime experience. Two reasons - first the cost. It was not cheap. Cost us $109.00 for a 2 1/2 hour train ride with 20 minutes at the summit. Second was the ride - rough! Small seats and little knee room. Very confining. Even with that, we enjoyed the ride, the views, the summit, and hearing the history of the train. I'll not go into all that, but I think that there is a good bit of information on their web page - www.thecog.com

I'm going to post a few of the 77 pictures that I took during the ride up and back.

This marker tells a little about the Cog Railroad...



Our train...



The start of the ride up the mountain - the smoke is from a train that left about 15 min. earlier.



Scenery going up the mountain...



Scenery is now changing as we approach the top. Can you see the hikers?



There is it - the top of the mountain...



Here we are. Guess next time I need to check Dean out for neatness! You can tell the wind was blowing - about 25 -30 mph. We were lucky, it was a mild wind day!


Looking back where we were...



They are going up - we are going down...



I forgot to mention - the engine was coal fired, thus all the smoke (and soot). Some of the pictures may look smoky. The wind was blowing the smoke over the passenger car - going and coming. We didn't get to much on us, but some people were really covered with soot.

On our way back to the campground we ate at Grandma's. Good food and priced fair. I had roast turkey (the real thing), mashed potato's, beets, cranberry sauce, stuffing and pie for dessert - gosh I'm full!

On Saturday we are taking another train ride, this one is a 5 hour ride through Crawford Notch. It is on a diesel powered train. We opted for the open air coach. As you can tell by now, we enjoy train rides. Someone else does the driving and we get to look. Till next time.....

Highways, Quarries and Memorials

We are now in Marshfield, VT., well, almost. Actually we are at the edge of Groton Forest at the Groton Forest Road Campground. This campground is a PA at the rate of $9.00 per night - unlimited! Wish I could find more of them!



The drive here was really pretty. It seemed like one oohh or ahhh after another. This picture was taken while driving on I-91 north.



We visited the Rock of Ages quarry yesterday. Really neat. The quarry is 600 feet deep although it didn't look that deep until you spotted someone working in the quarry - they looked so small. This company mines (I guess that would be the right word) granite. From this quarry they get the white granite, but they have other quarries that have pink, brown, blue, black, etc. Some of the mining is done for industry, but most of it is done for Rock of Ages Memorials. There is a plant on site where you can observe memorials being made from the granite. Amazingly, most of the artwork on their memorials is done by hand and it was interesting watching one in progress. The following picture shows one of the craftsmen working on a memorial.



Here are some pictures of the quarry. In the first picture if you look close you can see stairs going up the quarry wall. These are for an emergency escape. There are people on the ledge in the second picture - can you see them?



Any one for a yellow taxi - oops I mean cage? This is the way the workers get into and out of the quarry - scary!




We then drove to Hope cemetery in Barre, VT. Talk about some bizarre memorials! Here are pictures of a couple of them.

This is my favorite - together forever...






These are all Rock of Ages memorials. If you can think it, they can do it, but don't wait to late to plan yours. Maybe we'll have a fifth wheel for ours - LOL!

Today we went to the Cabot Creamery - their most widely know product is Cabot cheese. If you are ever in the area don't miss it - very interesting plus you can sample almost every kind of cheese they make. You can also purchase most any of their products by the each or bulk. They also ship for you.

From there we drove to St. Johnsbury to the Maple Grove Farms manufacturing plant. We were very disappointed. The tour was short and noisy. We saw maple syrup being bottled then went to the area where the maple candy is made, but they had already gone home for the day - it was 1 p.m. The museum was a bigger disappointment - nothing to it! We then went to the gift shop where we were told we could sample the four grades of maple syrup and the candy. Wrong! There was a counter where you were supposed to be able to sample, but no one there. I asked one of the workers about the candy samples and her reply was "someone will get to it". Never happened - we left.

There was another maple sugarhouse that we heard about at the campground so we decided to go there. It is the Bragg Farm Sugarhouse and Gift Shop in E. Montpelier. Very nice place to visit. They show a film of how the sap is tapped from the tree and then how it is turned into syrup - forty gallons of sap make one gallon of syrup! You can sample the four grades of maple syrup so you know which you prefer before making a purchase. Very friendly folks here - will answer questions without hesitation. There is also a soft serve ice cream counter that has maple and chocolate. I would usually go for the chocolate but - the maple was yummmy good!!!

On our way back to the campground we passed two interesting buildings. A barn with a lot of "things" on the outside - see the picture.


This house was different because of the window - I've never seen a window installed this direction - have you?



Tomorrow we bid farewell to Vermont and say hello to New Hampshire. We are staying in Lancaster, NH for five nights. One of the top items on our to do list while there is to ride the Cog Railway to the top of Mt. Washington. I checked the weather there (Mt. Washington) and the highs for the next week are in the 50's - time for a sweat shirt. Bye for now......

Quechee, Taftsville, Woodstock, VT

Saturday morning started out very overcast with the forecast for rain, so we got an early start to tour this area of Vermont. We drove first to the Quechee Gorge. I can only imagine how pretty it is if the sun were shining. I did get a few good pictures though. The first one is looking up the gorge and the second is looking down stream.



From the gorge we drove in search of the Quechee covered bridge. Some pictures .... the first is looking at the falls, upstream from the bridge, then the bridge and looking downstream - I wonder if they caught any fish!







Our next destination was the Taftsville covered bridge which was build in 1836. We actually drove across this one - twice! Again, the area is very scenic.

The bridge....



The construction....



and the waterfalls....



We left Taftsville via the River Road. Before I go on, all the water photos are of the Ottauquechee River. This river is not deep, as a matter of fact, all that we saw was probably about one foot deep, with the exception being at the waterfalls. Very clear, very cool water!

The drive on the River Road was quite an experience. Started off on a narrow paved road and went down to a dirt/gravel one lane road. There were a few wider spots, thank goodness, because of course we met a few vehicles going the other direction. This road provided a really pretty drive along the river and then past some old farms that have been kept in wonderful condition. If we hadn't taken this road - it's not on most maps - we would have missed one of our most interesting drives yet.

Here are pictures of two of the properties we saw on the River Road.


Maplewood Farm Circa 1792..



Forest Rain, circa 1800's


At the end of River Road was Woodstock, VT. If it wasn't for the vehicle traffic, you could picture being back in time. A really quaint town with a town green, covered bridge and several old churches. This one caught my eye. It is the First Congregational Church established in 1781. A real beauty. The house was across the street from the church and was so attractive. I didn't see any indication of age, but feel it probably dates back to the 1800's.





This is the Middle Covered Bridge in Woodstock. This one is a little different as it has it's own walking area. We saw one other covered bridge on our drive, the Lincoln Covered Bridge built in 1877, but didn't get a very good picture of it.

We had lunch at the Mountain Creamery Restaurant in Woodstock. Good food, very pricey. Since the rain had begun we decided to return home for the rest of the day. Good thing as it got worse as the day went on. We spent the afternoon working on a 1000 piece puzzle - don't know why I bought it - I get so frustrated with those things. We have the frame done and some of the inside, but I think it will be packed up today (Sunday) and brought out another time to finish.

The rain has stopped but it is very overcast today. I don't think that we will do much today, just get ready to move tomorrow. Hope your weekend was a good one.

Baskets, Country Stores and Trains

Yesterday morning dawned a beautiful day. Temperatures were in the mid 60's early in the morning and by mid-day the high was in the mid 80's. This is more like it. As I'm writing now, the temperature outside it 61. This is great!

We are staying at the Battleboro KOA - a nice, well maintained and quiet park. We don't usually stay at KOA's but this one was recommended by a friend and although a little more expensive, it was very clean and well kept.



We started yesterday morning by going up the road to Putney, VT to Basketville. You certainly couldn't "put all your eggs in one basket" there - to many to choose from. Not only baskets but a large assortment of kitchen things and candles - that's Yankee Candles. Their factory is just south of here, but since my daughter-in-law makes candles we aren't going there. Back to the baskets - if you are looking for a certain type of basket, you will most likely find it here. We saw them from a 6' fish to a 12" round. I've been looking for a small one to put outgoing mail etc. in and finally found one that I really like. Here is a picture of it. I figure the hooks will come in handy for spare keys etc. Now to get Dean to hang it! Prices at Basketville - I found them to be very reasonable, not at all expensive like some other brands. LATE EDIT - The basket is hung!



Our next stop was the Vermont Country Store. We visited the one in Rockingham, VT. This place had a lot of hard to find items, especially in the toy section. We spent 30 minutes looking at some of the toys going "I remember playing with this when I was a kid". Looking for Lincoln Logs for your grandchild - they have them. They also have clothing, candy (by the piece), jellies, sauces, cookies, crackers, cheese, maple syrup, drinks, and toiletries of which I haven't seen since I was a kid. In the candy section, you can buy it by the piece or pound. Make the candy section your first stop - get a few pieces of what you think you want, then eat them while looking around. That way you can go back and get a pound! I found "chocolate babies" that I love and haven't seen in way to many years to tell - LOL!! It was really a step back in time and I would recommend no less than an hour so you can really look at everything. There are also a lot of artifacts of years gone by to look at and "remember when"!



This is a picture of the main building - there are two other sections, not pictured here. There are rockers on the porch and picnic tables and swings. A really neat place to visit.

We had lunch - Dean had hot dogs and I had a grilled cheese (I know, not gourmet eating) at the Bellows Falls Country Club. It is located just across the highway from the Vermont Country Store, but you can't see it - no signs and it's hidden. A clerk at the store told us about it. It really wasn't much of a building, but they had a pro-shop, a bar and eating area. The menu really surprised me - very large with a wide variety to choose from - snacks to full meals. Here is the view from our table.



On our way to Bellows Falls we passed this old church and of course I had to stop and take a picture. It dates back to the 1700's - it's amazing that it is still there!



At Bellows Falls we waited at the old train depot for The Green Mountain Railroad trail to arrive. I'm not sure it's age, but it was certainly old fashioned inside - wooded floors, wooden benches and a nice clock that didn't work anymore. After about a half hour wait, here came the train.




The Green Mountain Flyer train ride was nice. We started out riding alongside the Connecticut River...



then went along a Williams River...



to Chester, VT.



Along the way we passed a covered bridge..



Went past a waterfall and gorge at Brockway Mills......



and a farmhouse that was used as a stagecoach stop...



Today (Thursday) is moving day and we are going to Pine Valley RV Resort at Quechee, VT. Before hitching up, we made a trip into Putney for breakfast and a trip to the General Store. Another "old" building that originally was used as a grist mill. Here are a couple of pictures of the store - front and back, and the stream.





We have seen such pretty scenery already, I can't believe we have only been here two days. I have to wonder if anything can top it. Check back and see.....