New Hampshire and our Two-week Check-in

We broke camp early and continued on to New Hampshire this morning, passing through quaint St. Johnsbury and partaking of a hearty breakfast at Al’s Diner.  Our server told us that we could find free internet access at the Welcome Center, so we took some time to download mail and upload several new posts to the blog.

The White Mountain Visitor Center provided just the information that we needed to find our next campground.  We stopped at Passaconnaway State Park and located a large and deep campground that backed up to woods.  With black bear warnings everywhere, we have been certain to take the proper precautions.

Once we had registered (at a self pay station!!!), we hiked down to the Swift River.  While deep and clear, it was hardly swift.  Roxanne thoroughly enjoyed her swim and fetching sticks.  As an added bonus, she was clean when we arrived back at camp!

The mosquitoes drove us into the camper early tonight.  A brief thunderstorm this afternoon also provided an additional shot of high humidity.  We realized that today is our official two-weeks-on-the-road mark.  So to catch you up on our general state of affairs, here’s our check-in: 

Miles Driven:  Approximately 2,580

Landscape:  The drive along Highway 2 through Vermont and New Hampshire has been quite lovely.  We have driven through beautiful little hamlets with quaint old houses.  Most of the shops along our route appear to be family owned.  We have told you about Rainbow Sweets.  Marshfield also had a weathervane maker; another town had a blacksmith; Cabot boasted a coop creamery that made specialty cheeses.  

Most homes have beautiful gardens, sporting both vegetable and flowers.  Like the upper west coast, this region has moderate temperatures and substantial rainfall during the summer months.  The flowers are absolutely beautiful.

The mountains here are gentle and rolling.  While there are a few higher peaks above 4,000 feet tall, the vast majority are around 2,000 feet in altitude.  All of the mountain ranges that we have passed through thus far appear to be completely forested.  Now that we are in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, however, we find a few to be more craggy, with some stone faces.  While the scenery is vastly different from my beloved Rocky Mountains, it has been a lovely drive.

Weather:  As a result of the warmer-than-expected weather, we have had to break out Roxanne’s swimming pool a few times to keep her cool.

It has rained most days… mainly just passing showers.  The resulting humidity levels, however, have been equal (or worse) to home, making for sticky sleeping conditions. Most daytime highs have hovered in the mid 80s, with a few days breaking the 90 degree mark and a very few days down in the upper 70s.  Most nighttime temperatures have been in the 60s… our lowest temperature registered 59 degrees.  We were hoping to be much cooler by now.   

Our Four Wheel Camper:  We have had another learning curve with the electrical system.  During our stay in Montreat, we ran both fans each night without running the truck during any of the three days we were there.  The battery went dead during the third night.  Unbeknownst to us, the truck alternator is set up so that it cannot fully recharge the battery when it is completely drained. 

As always, our dealer, Chris Janeway, was extremely helpful in trying to resolve the issue.  We now know not to let the battery’s charge fall below 12 volts.  We have borrowed a battery charger from George, our brother-in-law, so that we can recharge with an electric hook up.  Now David is working to resolve the issue more permanently.

We have found the rig extremely easy to set up in the rain… in fact, it takes us just minutes to pop it and set up camp.  We are finally figuring out where it makes sense to store items and find our new quarters comfortable during rainy evenings.  While there are definite pros and cons in comparing it with our wonderful little Kamparoo, we both feel that this rig is working well for us.

Photography:  We have been disappointed at the lack of wildlife that we have seen.  Except for three very tame deer in the campground on Skyline Drive, we haven’t seen anything bigger than a rabbit so far.  At least since we entered Vermont we have been encountering “moose crossing” signs along the roadside.  We have not seen a moose yet, but hope springs eternal.  We figure that the warm weather is keeping most animals bedded down during the day.

Skyline bunny

With fresh lobster on our mind, we originally planned to head straight for the coast tomorrow.  But George suggested that Moose Lake would be a special destination.  So tomorrow, we’ll head deep into Maine to see what awaits us there.

Sweet dreams and God bless, dear friends.