We drove around a lot to take in the New Hampshire scenery. The landscape is pretty similar to Vermont, but less inhabited, and the mountains are taaall. Many of the farms have houses that connect to their barns, which seemed odd. They typically look like a Monopoly house with an addition on the back that looks like another Monopoly house, but smaller, and then one more, even smaller, behind that. The smallest one gets butted up to the barn. Seems like a lot of trouble to avoid treks through the snow.

Although the Old Man of the Mountains rock formation is no more, we stopped to be sure. And just down the road from it is The Basin, which is a 30 foot whirlpool that’s been naturally carved out of the granite by the Connecticut River. It’s beautiful and elegant and cool to see, but not so easy to put into words. We camped in West Ossipee, right on a little river near Maine’s border. People in these parts are starting to talk funny.

On our drive from Maine to Massachusetts, we visited southern New Hampshire. Portsmouth is a fairly sizable and very charming, brick town. Lots of shops, but we only headed to the Starbucks for my fix. We could have easily spent more time here. A short drive down the highway is New Hampshire’s eighteen miles of Atlantic Ocean coastline. We dropped by Hampton Beach and much to our surprise found surfers! Probably a hundred of them surfing the tiny swells under the cold, overcast skies. Who would have thought?