| Heading south from Mt Washington, we came across the
holiday resort of Meredith NH. Here we found the Winipessaukee &
Pemigewasset Valley Railroad. This is one of the many short restored
railroads scattered around the US and now used for tourist rides. Usually, as here, you have one or two
small first generation diesel units and a collection of coaching stock of
various vintages. |  |
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Given the name of the railroad, you can understand why the coaches are so
long here. This is a retired observation car and could have been from any of
the railroads originally. |
| They all certainly have at least one caboose and a few
box cars. The latter has been converted to a small shop. This caboose is
restored and more colourful than most. A couple of less picturesque engines
and wagons were in the sidings. |  |
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Meredith is on the edge of Pemigewasset Lake and a small launch does
tours of the lake for the visitors. |
| The visitors probably stay in this hotel on the lake
edge with its colourful window boxes providing quite a splash of colour. |  |
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The nice thing about living in the country, and Nelson NH, population 1600, certainly
counts as country, is that you can have space to spread out in. In fact
there are towns, and this is one, where by ordinance you must have at least a
two acre plot. Perhaps this is a scheme by tractor salesmen to sell lawn
tractors. |
| But the first thing that struck us about Nelson was
this collection of post boxes in the centre of the village. This is a true
community where everybody knows everybody else and what they are doing. They
all look after one another too. I guess this is the heart of rural small
town America. They certainly made us welcome. |  |
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We stayed with friends who have an extensive vegetable garden in part of
their garden. They have had to surround it with a high electric fence to
stop the deer eating the crops. However it hasn't stopped the field mice who
just see it as a supermarket... |
| No, it is only August. Pumpkins aren't supposed to be
this size and colour until October. The weather this year has been very
strange everywhere. |  |
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This vicious looking tool is a log splitter. I want one for my tractor when
we go home. However, it does seem to be cheaper to buy a standalone one and this
certainly was a bit unwieldy on the back of the tractor. Still it was a good
balance weight for the front bucket. |
| It was the village fete and our friends were involved
so we offered to help and ended up serving the chicken to all the villagers.
So by the end of the day everybody in the village knew about us and our
travels. |  |
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The worlds largest ice bucket: take a John Deere tractor with a front
bucket, line with a plastic tablecloth and fill with ice. Then the cans of
pop were loaded by this young lady. Everybody helps as best they can! |
| Saturday night we went to a contra dance at Walpole.
This duo is called Notorious. Eden Somerville & Larry Unger. They were
awesome, playing everything from a huge English, Irish and gypsy repertoire
and really driving music for excellent dancing. As an Englishman I find
the way contra dancers gaze deeply into your eyes most of the time somewhat
unnerving. However it is considered good manners. Interesting how the
cultural differences have grown over the years. But we did enjoy the
dance and especially the music very much. The band is going to the Ely
contra festival in England next year. |  |
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The next day our host took us for a drive around the area, which is known
for its many lakes and
trees. We wonder if the trees have voting rights and this is what makes New
Hampshire such an important political state. There don't seem to be many
people. |
| We went out in the village to a potluck dinner and our
hosts there have this beautifully restored vintage car. However I'm not enough of
an expert to know exactly what it is. |  |
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They also have this wonderful stove in the kitchen. I read in a book once
that the secret to understanding New England is the wood burning stove.
Having seen how much wood there is up here I can understand why! In the
garden our friends have a humming bird feeder and this was extensively
patronised. Very difficult to get them to slow down enough to photograph
them though. I guess these were just lucky shots. |
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We moved on and stayed one night at a campsite in Phillipstown MA. This huge
5th wheel was driven in (from the wrong direction) by a young girl with two
young kids. She had barely an inch to spare but never faltered. Some of
these units are truly enormous. |
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We also stopped for an anniversary dinner at a local restaurant within
walking distance. The meals were excellent and very stylishly presented. They
were not expensive but not the $1.50 advertised in a menu framed on the wall. |