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Friday, August 31, 2018
Since we plan to only sight see one day while in New Hampshire I asked Dean what he would like to do. Concord is less than 15 miles away - the state capitol of New Hampshire. As you know I enjoy visiting state capitols. Dean always enjoys the tours, but most likely, it's not what he would choose. I was right, as he suggested we visit the coastal communities along the state's small coastline. I guess I'd have to say being near the water is probably higher on my list of things to do than state capitols so he didn't have to twist my arm too hard....okay, he didn't have to twist it at all!
We headed out taking US202 to US4 from Epsom to Portsmouth, NH where we took Bypass 1 to Middle Street, then finally 1A South along Odiorne Point State Park and then along the coastline. We both enjoy being near the water and for me the ocean is beyond awesome. I could set for hours and watch the waves come in, the birds flying around, and the occasional site of wildlife in the water, whether it be seals, dolphins or various birds. Today we only saw birds, but that was okay, because all of the elements were there that we needed. It was an absolutely beautiful day and we enjoyed every moment of it. There was a nice parking area along the road, where we had to pay to park, but gave us immediate access to the beach.
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| We were sitting on this wall on the left in the picture above. There were a number of large rocks below that we were able to prop our feet on. We should have brought beach shoes and chairs. We could have enjoyed an after dinner snooze! |
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| Looking the other direction. There just isn't anything much better than sitting on a beach listening to the waves come in. The water is mesmerizing for me! |
While we didn't walk down to the beach here - we didn't think to bring our beach shoes - we enjoyed just sitting on the concrete path, with our feet resting on large rocks just beneath us while just enjoying the water activity going on around us.
We were growing hungry so a short way down the road we stopped in Rye, NH (We couldn't possibly pass the opportunity to eat here, as I have a nephew named Rye) at Ray's Seafood.
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| Ray's Seafood - Rye, NH |
Dean and I shared a plate of fried halibut, fries and they gave us double on the cole slaw. It was very good and was just enought for the two of us.
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| This is my plate - I ended up with another piece of fish and a few more fries, plus my cole slaw! |
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| The view out of our window |
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| Inside wall of the restaurant |
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| Ray's Seafood Restaurant |
After we left Ray's, we saw this large boom with an American flag on it with lots of cars parked nearby. As we neared it, we could see there was a large group of people. The local emergency workers (police, fire, ambulance) appeared to be having some type of event for people in the area. Maybe a prelude to Labor Day activities, encouraging everyone to be safe?
We passed these shrimp boats.
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| Another water view! |
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| I told Dean I'd be happy with this one - we could fix it up to be really comfortable. I don't mind living in a small space anymore! |
It wasn't too long and the road moved inland. The ride after that wasn't quite as enjoyable but it was still nice. We followed a bit of a historic trail - at least according to the map; however, there was nothing to tell us what was historical. Occasionally we would see a house with the "Build date on it" but other than that we were not sure what, if anything, we should be looking for or at.
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| We saw a number of water areas like this, where we noticed kayaks maneuvering through them. |
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| This was an apple farm. |
Random pictures I took on the return drive on my phone:
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| I managed to find one barn! |
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| We were stopped at a stop sign when I took the two pictures above. So many of the houses we see are setting in trees like these. |
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| These bushes are everywhere and are just beautiful! |
Our drive to the coast seemed much shorter than the one back to our campground in Epsom. On our return to the campground, we stopped at the office, checking to see if our mail had arrived. It was but when we checked I was pretty disappointed. Dean is expecting his new medicare card, but it was not there. I called to have two prescriptions sent to me and while I did recieve one it was to make up the difference in an order they sent me several weeks ago. I did not receive the ones I really needed in the next week. I tried to call the Cherokee Health Center but it was too late in the day and no one answered, so I'll have to follow up on this next week. We were both really tired. We had a light supper and watched TV for awhile before heading to bed.
Saturday, September 1, 2018
First thing on the agenda today, was finding a place to have breakfast, and we chose Cafe at the Circle. The entrance is just as you come off a large roundabout, so a very fitting name. Dean had his normal eggs, sausage, toast with home fries, and I chose an omelet - ham and cheese with hash browns and toast. On a scale of 1 to 5, I'd give it a 3.5. It was good, but nothing special.
We needed a few groceries so we found a Hannaford Grocery that wasn't too far away and stopped to pick up a few food items. I checked out their paper products but they were really expensive, so we decided to make a drive to Wal-mart tomorrow to get those items plus a few things we could not find at Hannaford.
The campground owner does "Halloween for Labor Day" each year. Each site has the opportunity to decorate their campground and/or their golf cart for prizes. In addition the kids are encouraged to dress up in costume and to "trick or treat" for candy items from the various campers.
While I was getting ready to hang some clothes out to dry this morning, several young girls (probably high school age) stopped out front in a golf cart and one of them walked to the door, asking if we would be participainting in the trick or treat this evening.. I told her we would and she gave us a ballooon to hang up at our site so they knew it was okay to come here.
We are taking advantage of getting laundry done here since we have full hookups, and I did three loads today. I usually dry each load at least 20 minutes then hang them up to finish drying so I can go ahead and do another load. It was fairly cool today in the 70's so they were a little slow to dry, but by early evening I had everything put away. In between I had other things I wanted to do inside Bentley, a little cleaning, a little reorganization and it was nice to have the time to do it.
Around 6 or so, we heard the parade heading our way. Golf carts leading the way, with the kids walking behind in their costumes, along with a few dogs in theirs. They were having a good time.
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| Golf carts decorated for Halloween on Labor Day |
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| Kids and animals wearing costumes for Halloween on Labor Day. |
It was another 15-20 minutes before we started getting the "trick or treaters". They told us to plan for about 20 kids. There were more than 20 kids in the parade, but we only had about 15 or so. Guess what? That left us with candy! Ugh...that is not a good thing! I'll try to be good though.
We had planned to grill some salmon for dinner but by now we really didn't want to get the grill out, so I through something else together and we'll do the salmon tomorrow night. It was a good productive day.
The park also provided a "hayride" later in the evening. It sounded more like a party, as they rode through the park several times giving their "yahoo's", but at 10:00 everyone calmed down and it was a quiet night. We appreciated that, but we know we can still sleep well by turning on our air conditioner fan and letting it run for the evening - typically we never hear anything short of a car horn going off, or something similarly loud. A nice feature to have available sometimes.
Sunday, September 2, 2018
Today is our last day here in Epsom, and I still had several things I wanted to accomplish today - more deep cleaning and laundry, as well as bringing our month end budget report up to date. I was pretty happy with the budget outcome except for the grocery and dining out line items - we just like to eat way too much. Fuel was only slightly over, but other than a few minor things everything else was well under budget. Overall, though we had a really good month, with a decent carryover so I'm thankful for that.
This morning we headed to Khol's, located in a small town just south of Concord. They had a few things on sale I was intersted in. I had a 30% off coupon and a $5 Yes2You Reward. All I ended up buying was some low cut socks, which I really needed. 10 pairs for $8.99. I forgot my 30% off coupon but was able to use my $5 Yes2You Reward, so $3.99 without tax wasn't a bad price. We stopped at Walmart, picked up the few items we needed there and our final stop was at Camping World. Dean wanted to look for a couple of items, but when we pulled into the parking lot, it wasn't open yet. He didn't want to wait the 15-20 minutes until they opened so we came on back to the campground. It's less than 5 minutes away, so we might drive back later today.
By the time we got back home it was time for lunch. Once we were done I got busy on my cleaning. That took up pretty much the rest of our day. Dean worked outside cleaning and reorganizing the basement. It was a good day to get this done, and good exercise, even though today was more humid than previous days.
Tomorrow we will pull up our jacks and move into Maine. I'm glad we'll have all of these "chores" out of the way when we land in Saco, Maine!
You have been busy. Living is a small place now for 12 years, we can't imagine living in a large house again, this is so comfortable and easy to clean.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you George. Easy to clean is my favorite part!
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