Lancaster, New Hampshire

The rain started late yesterday afternoon, continued through the night and throughout most of today.  What a great day to relax.  Besides, things are getting pretty dry around here so the rain is welcome.

Main Street

On our agenda today was to visit the small community of Lancaster, NH.  Since the rain was light and intermittent this morning, we decided to go with our plan.

Lancaster is a border town--on the border with Vermont.  We are only 5 miles from the Maine state line, but it is still just a short 30 miles over to Lancaster along US 2.

Parking meters have been converted to flower pots

We drove into town and quickly turned north on a side street.  Large, old homes, many in need of repair and several sporting “For Sale” signs out front, lined the neighborhood streets.  This seems to be another small New England town struggling with economic difficulties.  However, it was not nearly as depressing as Berlin.

Back on US 2, Main Street, we found a place to park while we did a little window shopping.  This block-long section of “downtown” was doing it’s best to put on a happy face.  Almost every merchant had flowers in boxes or containers out front; even the parking meters had been removed and replaced with live plants.  Very nice.   I always notice the flowers.  It seems like such a little effort to make such a beautiful impression and our hometown of Nashville for some reasons doesn’t make the effort.

Wait, does Paul Bunyon's moose resemble Gene?

Gene was looking for a long-sleeved hiking shirt so we went into a couple stores which catered to the sports enthusiast.  No luck, however, in finding the shirt.  Not much in the way of long-sleeved anything out right now.

We also browsed through an antique shop.  The search is on for glass wine glasses for cheap--$4 tops.  The shop had lots of glassware, but no wine glasses.  Well, that’s not exactly true.  They had a set of 6, but I only wanted one.  No deal there.  It was fun, anyway, to look at all the “stuff” in the store, much of which was like what we grew up using.  If we didn’t actually have it in my childhood home, it was at my grandparents’ house.  It was way to familiar to be an “antique”.   To tell the truth, some of that stuff is in my own home right now--things I couldn’t stand to part with when my grandparents’ or Gene’s mother passed away.

After browsing through the antique store, we stopped in at the Visitor Center.  That was a good stop.  We picked up a road map for New Hampshire and, perhaps my favorite, a guide for all the American National Scenic Byways.  Now, we can hit the road.

We made a short detour on our way home to the tiny community of Twin Mountain.  We had stayed here in 2006 and Gene remembered a cool General Store.  We found the General Store, but it was not as cool as remembered.

The afternoon has been a lazy one playing on our computers, organizing digital photos, and napping.  What a great day.

Rain is in the forecast for tomorrow, so we may have another lazy day.  We’ll see.