Utica, NY to Hancock, NH

Thursday, July 15^th, 2010 – Day 2: Whitesboro, NY to Hancock, NH

We left Whitesboro at 10:00 and headed first to Saratoga Springs, NY. When Tara and I started dating in 2008, our first ever road trip was to Saratoga Springs to stay in the Diamond Jim Brady Room at the Batcheller Mansion Inn Bed and Breakfast for a long weekend. We arrived in town around noon and drove around a bit, marveling at the huge homes and estates throughout the town. After a short search for a parking spot in the crowded vacation destination, we walked along the main drag and decided to eat at the Circus Café. We enjoyed our brief excursion down memory lane and continued our drive to New Hampshire. Along the way we encountered one of the craziest roads ever, County Road – 61 (CR-61) in eastern New York. It really was not one road, as you would turn onto other connecting roads ever mile to follow the CR-61 signs. It was beautiful though, winding through pastures and farmlands.

The Northeast is wonderful for one’s sense of fulfillment, as it takes a relatively short time to drive through the various states. Vermont was next on the list and we made it a point to avoid any semblance of a highway as we crossed the Green Mountain State. We did stop at two antique stores and the famous Vermont Country Store: purveyors of all things antiquated and odd, such as Life Buoy soap, Moxie soda, the Kissing Bridge, and the widest selection of Vermont cheeses you could imagine. Before we knew it we crossed the Connecticut River and were in New Hampshire, though the road that we were on failed to announce our arrival.

We arrived at the oldest continuously operating Inn in New Hampshire, dating back to 1789, The Hancock Inn in Hancock, NH at 6:00 and checked into our room. The proprietor of the Bed and Breakfast said that since the Inn was not fully booked he upgraded us to a larger room. We thought that this was mighty swell of him, until the morning. After unloading our bags we walked down to the local pond and through a cemetery behind the church/town hall. When we started our walk we saw that there was a little folk band called the Bradford Bog People setting up in the town center and a few people on lawn chairs ready to enjoy the concert. When we returned to Main Street, the crowd had grown to about 100 people. An ice cream truck and the town’s sheriff were also there as the folk band played their tunes and the children ran around the gazebo and climbed on the town statue. We returned to the Inn in time for our dinner reservations and enjoyed a great meal of herb crusted cod for me and chicken with lobster ravioli for Tara. We retired to our larger room and realized that we had failed to bring a fan with us on the trip. We have grown accustomed the past few years of sleeping with a fan on, in part to drown out the noise of the city, but also to keep the air moving. We thought since our room had two air conditioner outlets there would be enough movement, but at 11:00 the air stopped and the room became stifling. We were also contending with the church bells next door marking every hour (We thought this was quaint at 7 o’clock during our walk, but not as much at midnight). Needless to say that when the road construction started at 7:30 in the morning outside our larger room’s window, we were rudely awoken from a rather poor night’s sleep and wondered what our night might have been like in our original, smaller room in the back of the establishment.

Map