White Mountains, NH

We packed up from Great Pond Thursday morning (9/22) and headed for New Hampshire.  We decided to go to Bangor and take rout 2 west towards Skowhegan.  In Maine, you don't have many choices going easet-west, and the roads, especially non-interstates are in sad shape.  And add to it rain and two-lanes, it made the going slow and deliberate.  Skowhegan is a small town (what else in Maine) on route 2 and is home to a New Balance factory and outlet store.  Nancy couldn't find anything in her size, but I managed to find a pair of leather type "tennies".



So we left Skowhegan and drove to Rumford and pulled into the Walmart lot and had lunch in the motor home. While there we noticed that an older man, much older than me, in an old, as old as me, little travel trailer. It was sitting on blocks of wood and had clothes hanging out the windows. The old man looked like he hadn't bathed in weeks, and the trailer was very rough. A rollback came in and was preparing to haul it away and apparantly he decided the trailer could not be loaded without breaking it. So he left and the old "squatter" remained. After lunch we drove right on over to the Berlin-Gorham, NH area Walmart and spent the night there. Next morning we left and drove right through White Mountain National Forest on route 16 to South Tamworth, NH. Tamworth Camping Area was an older campground, but we had plenty of room. Saturday morning we did a little scouting and driving around the White Mountain area. Right around the corner almost was this old covered bridge that had been lifted off it's foundations and set down on supports on the south side of Bearcamp River.

 Above is where the bridge once crossed.

 Above we found this old town hall near a small town (Bartlett) and thought it was worthy of a photo.

 Above and below was near the Squamis Lakes Region near Holderness, NH.  On Golden Pond was filmed here.

 Sugar Maples beginning to show their brilliance.

 Durgin Bridge in North Sandwich, NH.

 Somewhere near North Sandwich.

 Overcast days makes for true-color photos as the sun tends to wash out color.

Right through the middle of the White Mountains there is this 30 mile long drive and it is nice.  If you've ever drove down Skyline Drive or Blue Ridge Parkway, you have a sense of what Kancamagus is all about.  Here are a few pics from that drive.

 New Hampshire had fall foliage.

An old depot in Bartlett.

 Another covered bridge along the Kancamagus Road.

 We thought this was interesting.

 Above and below, pics from the Crawford Notch State Park along route 302 just north of Mt. Nancy.  (Had to get that in there.)

 We saw many of these signs throughout New England.  We never saw any.  :-(

 Above, Wildcat Mountain ski area and just behind us is Mt Washington (below).  I chickened out an elected NOT to drive to the summit.

We checked out of the campground on Monday morning (92/6) bright and early and headed over to the local tire shop.

Above, we had some tire issues as we now have 25,000 miles on them and there was some "cupping" on a couple of the tires.  A severe cup had formed on one of the front tires (not good anywhere, but especially not the front) so I had the tire man rotate the tag tires with the fronts.  Now I have the vibration on the rear, not the front.  Still Annoying, but safer.  Hope they can last at least another 5 or 10 thousand miles.  They are expensive! 

So ends our time in New Hampshire.   We got on route 25 and headed west towards Vermont.  And that will the topic of our next blog.  Till then, Joe & Nancy, RVing Beach Bums.