Not Necessarily Interesting News

We were woken up this morning by our son. He woke up at 6:30 and saw that it was snowing. Not hard, but not light either. Just a steady snow. He ‘had’ to go out right now to see it. I got dressed with him and let him play in the parking lot for a few minutes. We hunted down breakfast and headed out to explore Portsmouth in the light.

We found a park where Dakota could run around, throw snowballs, and make snow angels. We let him have his fun then drove through the downtown section of town. Portsmouth is exactly what you think of when you think of a New Enlgand fishing village. The houses are small but well kept and some even hang out over the water on piers. There are lobster traps everywhere near the docks.

We ended up across the bay at New Castle. As you drive in to town there’s a sign that says: ‘Settled 1623 – Incorporated 1693’. There are some buildings in town over 300 years old. Some of the oldest buildings in the country.

We ended up at Fort Constitution. This fort was captured from the British months before the battles of Concord and Lexington and was the site of the first real hostilities between the colonists and the British. Today it’s a Coast Guard base thought most of the original fort still stands. It was bitterly cold here today. When we were there it was snowing and quite windy. My wife said she thinks it’s the coldest she’s ever been. Afterwards we headed back to Portsmouth.

We totally fell in love with Portsmouth but after stopping in and talking to a realtor decided there’s no way in hell we’d ever be able to afford to live there on one income.

Next we travelled across the drawbridge into Kittery, ME. We went across more to say we visited Maine than anything else. We did end up in Point Kittery where we got a wonderful seafood lunch at a little place overlooking the harbor and lobster traps. It finally stopped snowing while we ate.

We decided to head north after this. Instead of taking the much faster turnpike we took backroads and went thourhg all the small towns taking pictures along the way. We pulled in to a park outside Dover to take some pictures of a pretty frozen pond. As I pulled in to the lot I noticed there were a few cars there. I started to get out to take pics when I noticed most of the cars were backed in to their spots and had a single male occupant. All of them staring at me. Hmmmm. Looks like I found the cruising spot in town. Time to leave. There are somethings I don’t want to explain to my 8 year old.

We stopped in Rochester and talked to a Realtor. The prices are much more reasonable now that we’re outside commute distance to Boston. Nice little town but nothing remarkable.

We made it all the way to North Conway. A bigger ski resort town. The place is pretty dead as ski season is winding down. It’ll probably get busier tomorrow as Easter weekend starts. The nice thing so far about traveling in the off season without reservations is that hotels really want your business. If they don’t knock off at least %20 or more of what they said at first was their ‘best’ price we move on. Tonite the guy asked if I was a AAA member. I told him I’ll say I am if it gets me a discount. He replied, ‘well I’ll say I saw a card’. He knocked another $20 off that price. An added bonus I didn’t know at the time was that guests here get free passes for a local ski slope for cross country skiing or tubing. We had planned to go tubing anyways and this looks to save us another $25. Sweet.