A weekend at the Mountain View Grand Resort & Spa

Pam and I spent a weekend at the Mountain View Grand Resort & Spa in Whitefield, NH.

We had a leisurely drive through Franconia Notch and arrived in the area a few hours before check-in.  Both of us love to explore driving the back roads.  Love the dirt roads in the Jeep. 
 
It was cold and windy.  The first night it dropped to 3 degrees with 20+ mph wind gusts. 
 
I was up early to try to catch a sunrise.  Early enough that when I went downstairs no one was there.  I found a nice room on the main floor with a big window so I could keep an eye out for the sun to come up.  It was very cold outside, and my fingers froze when I ventured out to take pictures.  Crisp air from the wind and not a cloud in the sky made YELLOW the color of the morning sky.  I zoomed in on the Mount Washington Observatory.

Mid-morning, we were up and out the door and checked out the activities at the resort.  We had fun hiking on a couple of the trails through the woods.  The resort had snowshoeing and cross-country skiing for us.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough snow on the ground.  I put chains on our boots to better navigate the snow and ice on the trails.  If Pam slipped and fell, I could carry her out.  If I slipped and fell, I told her to leave me in the woods till spring … hehe … Here are a couple pictures of the trails in the woods.

We drove around the area and found some long dirt roads that paralleled the north side of Mount Washington.  That was a new experience and quite different than the views from Rt 302 and the Mount Washington Inn on the south side of the mountain. 

As we were driving, we had lunch at The Copper Pig Brewery/Pub in Lancaster, NH.  The food was very good, their BBQ sauce is homemade, and the beer, Oh My … Outstanding.  

That evening we stopped at the Littleton Diner.  We had some great diner food and of all places, I also ran into an old college friend.  You never know how small the world can be.

I am always looking for a good barn picture. Not including the Barn at the resort, I only saw 4 barns that were possibilities.  I am rather picky about the barn pictures I take.  Two didn’t make the cut, one I recognized and had taken a picture of years ago, and then there is this one.  This barn color put a smile on my face.

I was up early the next morning waiting for the sunrise.  I did see the front desk person but that was it.  It snowed an inch or so in the night.  The wind died down and it wasn’t as cold as the morning before.  Not much of a sunrise again.  The sun did break through a crack in the clouds.  I did jump in my Jeep to possibly get some pictures before Pam got up.

When I returned from my little picture adventure, I took some drone pictures of the resort. 

We had lunch at the Mount Washington Inn.  Always a fun place to explore, hike, etc.  The food was great.  I took a couple pictures with Mount Washington in the background.

That evening we went to see a movie in St Johnsbury, VT called “Ordinary Angels” It was excellent, and would highly recommend it.   

The following morning after checkout we headed toward Franconia Notch.  We ate at the Hungry Bear Café in Franconia.  From there we hiked the loop trail to Artists Bluff.  The trail was a bit icy so it was good we had the chains for our boots.  It gets steep in places.  Steep + some ice = slippery.  

The views are beautiful.  If I had to complain it would be that we were looking into the sun so not the best time of day for pictures.  Getting there earlier or later in the day would solve that problem.  Seems I am always looking for critter tracks when walking in the woods.  As we approached the top I stopped and pointed to some nice tracks in the snow.  I asked Pam how many toes she saw in the snow.  She said 5.  I told her dogs have 4 toes, and bears have 5 toes.  The bears must be starting to move because of the mild temperatures.  Pam seemed to stay closer to me after that!!  The hike and the view were worth it and we’ll do it again.

We took the back roads home instead of the highway.  We found some great foliage spots.  May be another adventure when the leaves start to change.

(click on the pictures to enlarge)

From the Lancaster Fair to Fort Foster ...

Pam and I had a busy Labor Day weekend.  We were up early on Saturday heading a couple hours north to the Lancaster Fair.  There were lots of animals, rides, food, events, competitions, etc.

We decided to watch the draft horse pulling competition.  I don’t know anything about the rules.  Turns out they follow the Eastern Draft Horse Association Rules.  I looked those up and they were pretty straight forward.  The teamster (person driving the team) would walk the horse teams to the sled and turn them around to get hooked up.

It was interesting to watch as every horse team would get really amped up in anticipation of the pull.  It looked like the moment the horses heard the noise of being hooked to the sled they charged forward.  Several times the teamster missed the hookup and the team lurched forward with no sled.  They would have to be backed up to try to hook them up again.  As each round was complete they added more weight to the sled and the remaining teams would go again.  Looks like the weight of the sled and length of the pull eliminates the teams until you have a winner.

We continued through the fair and stopped briefly to watch more horse competitions.

Later in the afternoon we headed to the Mt. Washington Inn to walk around and relaxed on the deck.  It seemed busy due to the weather, long weekend, a couple wedding parties, etc. 

There are beautiful views of Mt. Washington.  It is much more difficult to spot the Cog railway engine and cars going up and down the mountain without the smoke from the old coal engines.  They switched to electric engines several years back.  The new engines are able to make it up the mountain quicker.  Binoculars or a zoom lens makes things easier.  The clouds at the top had just started to break up so I took a picture of the observatory from the deck at the inn.  Using the ruler on Google Earth a straight line of sight to the observatory is 6.8 miles.  Interesting what you can do with a super zoom lens.

We headed home in the evening … lot of walking and fresh air makes one sleepy.

After church on Sunday we headed for Ogunquit, ME to the Marginal Way.  We parked in Perkins Cove and walked to the end and back.  The weather was  beautiful.  The approaching storm off the coast was creating large waves.  They would be bigger in the next few days.

With high tide and big waves the beach looked crowded.  There were lots of people in the water too.

I took a picture of this white sailboat out in the bay and coming back into the cove. 

 

We decided to take Rt. 1A down the coast and explore.  At one point I pulled over to take a picture and noticed a long pier out in the water.  We headed back and ended up finding the entrance to Fort Foster in Kittery.  They gave us a map which included 3 parking areas.  We parked and walked to the pier by Pier Beach.  From there we walked the trail along the ocean past Whaleback Beach continuing to Rocky beach.

There are several old towers used to guard the shoreline, tables and grills throughout for cook outs.  It would be fun to spend the day there.  It was kind of a find for us and will go back prepared to spend the day there.

From Fort Foster we headed to Portsmouth for dinner.  We parked the car … and yes more walking.  After dinner we headed home. 
 

On Monday, Labor Day, we relaxed.  I went to the range.  Nice easy day.  Had a fun weekend and the weather was great …