We went to Waterville Valley, NH to celebrate Valentine's Day. We took a plane Friday night to Manchester, NH. It was actually a very nice city. The airport reminded me a lot of Kansas City. The walk from parking spot to the terminal was very short. There were only 17 gates. Rental car places were in the same place as the baggage claim, which made it easy to get both things done in a minimal amount of time. Very nice place.
New Hampshire is relatively sparsely populated. Manchester and Concord are the larger cities, but they are pretty small. Downtown areas were maybe 1/4 the size of Kansas City's downtown area. Mr. Lime mentioned that they just seemed like very livable cities and relatively safe.
We took I-93 into the mountains. Lots of trees. The vast majority of the trees were either evergreens or a tree that had a white bark that shed off the tree. Really nice roads (you start to notice these types of things after living in Baltimore for a year). The mountain streams were similar to the Canadian streams that I visited when I was younger. So clear you felt like you could drink the water straight from the stream.
We stayed in a hotel that was all suites. Basically, all of the units were privately-owned condos that were rented out to visitors when the owners were not using the unit. Really nice. Master bedroom with bathroom, two closets, kitchen and living room with a murphy bed. Great view of the mountains from both the living room and the bedroom.
We got a night's rest and headed to go skiing the next morning. We used the shuttle buses to go to the mountain. Rented the skis and headed up the mountain. It was nice to ski again. The first day was a really nice day. Very clear so we could see all the mountains around the area. The mountain was obviously not as big as mountains in the Rockies that we had skied on previously. Trails were somewhat limited. Also, even the black trails were groomed. So no mogul skiing for me, but Mrs. Lime didn't mind the chance to say she skied a black trail. It was a nice place to go skiing after a 5 year hiatus from the slopes.
We headed home after a day on the slopes for a quick nap and a night out. There was a really nice place called Town Square only a few hundred feet from our hotel. It had 6 restaurants and 15-20 shops. We went to a restaurant called Black Diamond North. Great food. We got some entertainment from some kids at a nearby table. 5 kids at a nice restaurant. Their orders? 3 macaroni and cheese and 2 hot dogs. They, of course ordered 5 Shirley Temples to go with their fancy meals. Mrs. Lime mentioned that she used to always get Shirley Temple's when she went out to eat as a kid. After dinner, we did some brief shopping and got a few things. In addition, there was a grocery store. We picked up some eggs for the morning breakfast.
My father-in-law had an annual rite of passage that he would perform once a year on the Fourth of July. He would pick up a load of morter shells ranging from 3-5 inches and head out to a lot on a lake north of town. He had 3 pipes buried in the ground. He then would tie a flare to the end of a broomstick and light the fuse and then dive into a hole as the morter exploded into the air. Occasionally, a morter would explode prematurely or rain down on the spectators. Neighbors all around the lake would applaud at his show of force.
You probably wonder why this story is being thrown into a story about a serene setting in the mountains. Well, right after dinner, there was supposed to be a fireworks display. I nearly lost it when I saw two red flares being lit on the other side of the lake, followed by the loud noise of mortars being launched in the air. It was my father-in-law's fireworks display being reinacted all over again. It even included people all around the late clapping and making lots of noise. When the display was all finished, the father-in-law copycats waved the flares in a circle. Evidently, this was the sign that it was all over. It was pretty amusing stuff to say the least. The full moon was behind the fireworks and lighting up the mountains surrounding us, providing a really nice setting for the whole show. You should be able to see the moon in all of the fireworks pictures above.
We were in bed by 9:00 (evidenly skiing takes it out of people over 30 years of age). We woke up the next morning to a colder morning with flurries. Quickly, the flurries turned to a snow storm. Great skiing conditions for us to enjoy.
We skied for a couple of hours and then realized we should probably head back early to Manchester to see if we could get out of town. We had already heard that Boston had over 16 inches of snow with more to come, so we knew that Manchester would probably have more snow. We headed out mid-afternoon. Driving conditions were initially good, but quickly deteriorated to blowing snow on the roads and snow-packed roads by the time we got to Manchester. We saw one pretty bad wreck on the road, but we were never in a dangerous situation. We just took our time getting back and made it just fine. Below are pictures of I-93 on our way back to Manchester.
We got an early flight that was leaving in an hour. We got on the plane in the middle of a snowstorm with visibility of about 1/2 mile. We got the plane de-iced and headed out to the runway. It was snow-packed, but surprisingly, it was one of the smoothest takeoffs I've ever had. I was amazed that a plane that large could take off in the middle of a blowing snowstorm. We got home early and took the rest of the night to relax.
