Vacation 2. ..End of the Summer

We planned our second vacation after Labor Day, thinking all the tourists and kids would have returned home. How wrong we were. The hotel and town was mobbed. We couldn't figure it out why all these people were up in the mountains after schools had reopened and most vacations were done with. Labor Day is usually the "official end of summer and vacations" weekend. We kept asking eachother "doesn't anyone work anymore?" Oh well....

Vacation started for us on a Sunday morning. Barb wanted Kim (Barb's daughter) and me over to her place at 8:30 for breakfast. She was going to make us blueberry pancakes before we left (and boy, were those pancakes FLAT!). Our plan was that Barb would ride up with Kim, following me, as Kim had to leave in the morning to get back to her horses. Barb and I were going to stay til the middle of the week. After I had arrived at Barb's, she told me to go look in her bedroom to see if I noticed anything "different". Hmmmmmm, took me awhile as I stood at the door way looking in and around but then I finally saw feet sticking out of the bottom of her bed. At first I thought she was playing a joke on me, and it was some dummy buried under her covers that we were going to have some fun taking on vacation with us, until...the feet moved! Out popped Diane, Barb's friend and she was going with us!! She drove her car, as she needed to leave a day before us. Our convoy was growing. Little did they know, how directionally challenged I am...and they were following me!

Of course, it was pouring out when we left. Could it be anything but pouring on vacation? We made it to the hotel in better time than our vacation in the spring. We did stop at that one famous landmark country store and gift shop. Diane had never been there before, neither had Kim and Barb was still in awe from the last time we stopped there. Hard to imagine they had never been there. I've stopped there since I was a kid with my parents, every time going up north. I stopped there with my own kids every time we traveled to the mountains. Guess "Ma and Dad liked me best" (ha-ha).

When we arrived, check in time was 3pm and we were early. So, we walked the nearby shops for a bit and checked if our rooms might be ready a bit early. Only Diane's room was. So we unloaded everything in there and went to pizza place next door. After that, our rooms were ready. Onward again with that luggage rack. (And Barb had to even ask me after we registered and I grabbed the luggage rack to wheel out to the cars.. "Do you think we're gonna really need that thing??" Barb....I think we needed it!)

We planned for this trip, all summer and looked f orward. Learning from our first vacation here, this one was MUCH better planned (look at that luggage rack...we almost needed two!). Course we bought movies, drinks, and snacks). We hit all the shops...buying gifts and decorations and books and cd's, Diane even bought a few Xmas gifts (I can't think Xmas yet!). Barb caught me more than once snorting those pine pillows up my nose just because I LOVE the smell of pine. Diane danced without the need for music; Kim had only Poncho on her mind and Barb really wanted to snort those pine needles up her nose with me. We had many laughs and thats what it's all about.

Its sort of strange in a way and we talked about this while on vacation. Here are the White Mountains...a place up north that we've all been to hundreds of times, since young kids. And now, we go there for vacation as though we've never been before and it's all new to us. We did take the train ride, we had never done that there before. That was new to us. The sightseeing part did not really matter, which is a good thing because you couldn't see anything anyway with the fog, cloud, rain. It was just fun anyway. We were going to take the trolly also but ran out of time. The next trip! But everything is fun all over again. Maybe it's just the company and it really matters not where we go. Though, this hotel really is convenient to everything and has everything right there.

Maybe some day we''ll get risky and venture out deeper into the world! (as long as I'm not driving)

It did rain all during our vacation. Of course, as I expected, it cleared up the morning that Barb and I were packing up. We walk to the car in the morning and out peeks the sun. Barb looks over at the mountain and says "I KNOW that's not real!! Someone painted that! It's a mural! I've never seen that mountain there before!!"

Until our next vacation, hopefully in the spring...
below are bits and peices of our early fall vacation. Enjoy!