New Hampshire Trip Day 3
Today we headed north from North Conway. Way north. A lot farther north in the state than we originally planned but we are glad we did it.
The hotel we stayed at last night gave us free passes to go tubing at a place at the base of Mt. Washington. Mt. Washington is famous for recording the highest wind speed anywhere on the planet. It’s also one of the coldest spots around. We were nowhere near the summit but it sure was cold as we tubed down the hills in a light snow. We had the slopes to ourselves for most of the morning which was very nice. Dakota had a blast in his first ‘real’ snow.
We looped around the north side of Mt Washington and headed south. We never got to see the peak of the mountain as it was socked in by clouds and snow. From our vantage point though it was rather intimidating.
We wound our way through many small towns on our way south and on a back road east of concord we happened upon a small maple farm right at dusk. We didn’t think they’d be open or around but we stopped anyways just in case.
We walked towards the sugaring shack and a man walked out of the barn from across the way. Turned out he was the owner and he was very nice. The name of the place was Windswept Maples Farm. He was in the process off bottling syrup and showed us around. He took us out to a few trees he had tapped and showed how they tapped them. The sap is clear and nearly the consitency of water. It is also nearly tasteless as it drips from the tree. We went inside and he showed us the syrup he was bottling and let us have a taste. He stuck a cup under the flow he was bottling and gave the sample to us. It comes out of the tap at 180 degrees. It was liquid heaven. He could have handed me a pint of the stuff and I would have drank it right there. Forget hot chocolate for a cold day, give me hot, pure, fresh maple syrup. He told us he’d be sugaring(boiling down sap) tomorrow and we should come by to see that. We told him he had a deal and went on our way.
For dinner we found a seafood place and I got Shannon her first ever taste of lobster. I didn’t make her do the whole shell cracking thing though. She got Lobster Newburg and enjoyed it immensly.
Tomorrow morning we’ll head out to watch Larry do some sugaring.
I’ve uploaded all of our pictures so far but they are uncommented/rotated/sorted and such. Feel free to look at them in their raw unedited state. I’ll get to commenting and such when we get home.