Tag: NH

A few facts about the cruise boat Mount Washington

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

For 149 years, a New Hampshire vacation tradition has been the big cruise boat that plies scenic Lake Winnipesauke in the mountains in the middle of the state.

Here’s the dope.

  1. It started out as a paddle steamer in 1872, built by the Boston & Maine Railroad Company to transport passengers and cargo around the lake.
  2. It soon became a tourist attraction, drawing 60,000 passengers a year, a figure that continues.
  3. That vessel burned in 1939 while tied up at dock and a fire spread from a train station.
  4. The current incarnation of the M/S Mount Washington is 230-feet long and has four decks. Maximum capacity is 1,250.
  5. The current vessel started out in 1888 as an iron-hulled sidewheeler on Lake Champlain. In 1940, it was cut apart in Vermont and shipped by rail to Lakeport, New Hampshire, where the hull was reassembled in a new twin-screw vessel design. It was powered by two steam engines (since replaced by diesel) taken from an ocean-going yacht.
  6. There are three dance floors. It seats 500 for dining or serves one thousand for a reception. Two-hour dinner-dance cruises are popular.
  7. It has five ports of call – Weirs Beach, Wolfeboro, Center Harbor, Meredith, and Alton.
  8. The M/S stands for motor ship.
  9. The views include the summer homes of many billionaires as well as mountains and at least 264 islands.
  10. The line also runs two smaller vessels, one of them a mail boat where the envelopes are actually sorted en route.

Just so you know about Lake Winnipesaukee

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment
  1. Situated near the center of New Hampshire, it’s the state’s largest lake and the third largest in New England.
  2. It stretches about 21 miles and varies in width up to nine miles, covering about 71 square miles.
  3. The lake contains at least 264 islands and has 288 miles of shoreline.
  4. Maximum depth is 180 feet, augmented by a dam at Lakeport.
  5. The center part of the lake is called the Broads.
  6. The outflow joins with the Pemigewasset River to form the Merrimack, which heads south into Massachusetts before turning east to the Atlantic. Its waters powered many of the industrial mills along its way, including Manchester, Nashua, Lowell, and Lawrence.
  7. The Native name translates as either “smile of the Great Spirit” or “beautiful water in a high place.”
  8. Officially, it’s not a lake but a “great pond,” which the General Court has defined as a natural lake of more than ten acres. The state owns the beds of all the great ponds, making the surface public water.
  9. Ice-out is a popular measure of the end of winter in the Granite State. It’s declared when the ice on the lake breaks up sufficiently for the Mount Washington cruise vessel to make it to every one of its five ports: Center Harbor, Wolfeboro (“the Oldest Summer Resort in America”), Alton, Weirs Beach, and Meredith. It’s also considered the beginning of boating season. The date has varied from March 16 to May 12.
  10. It’s hard to spell. That’s why it’s often known as Lake Winni.

Looking out at the Pawtuckaways

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment
The three peaks of the Pawtuckaway mountains to the west of us are viewed here from the Garrison Hill tower. Well, the middle one is obscured by the tree. Still, they’re prominent points in southeastern New Hampshire, midway between the Seacoast region and the Merrimack River, with good views of Boston from the forest fire lookout tower atop the 908-foot South Mountain (left).

I had promised myself I’d never do another U-Haul move

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

OK, I lied. Even to myself, as honesty is so central to my values.

Yes, I lied. In fact, as my wife recalls, when we jumped into our little city farm 21 years ago, I quipped that my next move would be in a pine box. Last I checked, I’m still breathing and my heart readings are falling within an acceptable range. Whew!

Oh, yes, back then my new stepdaughters informed me I’d better be nice to them because they’d be choosing my next home.

Skip ahead to now and the plot definitely changed. I’m not yet in a nursing home or eating those institutional meals, either. In fact, I’m enjoying relearning to cook, spoiled as I’ve been.

There were a couple of truck-rental actions where I helped our younger daughter (note the change of degree) and then our future son-in-law as well as a few younger members of Quaker Meeting, but that’s hardly the same of facing all of your own stuff. And I mean ALL.

And in our recent move, like my earlier ones, once more, we didn’t call the movers in but determined to do-it-ourselves.

Not that professional movers could have handled this one.

We were way behind in our sorting, for starters. Or, from another perspective, the move came upon us much earlier than we really expected. So much for the drama queen.

There was no way all of it could possibly fit into our new address in Eastport, even once we get some serious renovations done, so that meant a lot of redirection. (As I once remarked, after settling into Dover, I couldn’t imagine how people could live without a barn – yes, this Red Barn. But here I am.) Some of the mass has gone into our elder daughter’s Antique House and adjoining barn down in York, Maine, but there’s only so much space available there, and I can affirm that it’s jammed pretty solid. That led to renting and quickly packing two storage units, where I sense we’re buying time as much as anything else. Some intense triage will be done there. And the remainder has come up to Eastport with me, including one run with a small U-Haul truck itself. Along with more triage. And the dump, or “transfer station,” is nearly an hour away.

This move – my fifteenth address and ninth state since graduating from college a tad over five decades ago – has differed from the earlier ones, even if I had forgotten how heavy those boxes of books are, as well as the LPs, or vinyl, as cognoscenti like to say. Just noting that makes my lower back ache.

For one thing, this move’s been sequential, rather than a single burst. Each of my dozen trips between the two homes has allowed more goods to come east. In many of the earlier leaps, I hadn’t even seen the town until my job interview, and at least once I filled a truck, drove across many miles, got in town, and started looking for a place to live only afterward. (OK, a few times it was only my car, back when I had really focused.) Sure seems foolish to me now, but funds were limited. I’m grateful things worked out in the end, and it did provide some interesting fodder for my novels. And, oh yes, I was VERY single.

For another thing, my wife and I were moving from only the second home either of us had ever owned, and having a Realtor definitely helped, even in a hot real-estate market. Our new destination, meanwhile, connected to dreams I thought I had abandoned in leaving the Pacific Northwest, as well as some other activities I’ve added in New England. My wife, for her part, had come close to living on an island, and technically, she’s finally achieving that dream after a heartbreaking disappointment.

Emotionally, leaving a location you Barn readers know I truly loved was eased by being already socially distanced, thanks to Covid. Hey, I’m still getting together with those folks via Zoom, and I know I’ll be with many of them through New England Yearly Meeting of Friends even before considering the release of my next book, which is all about Dover’s unique roots. (Please stay tuned, as they used to say on TV.)

I’m also grateful for my goddaughter’s reaction to seeing our old place on Zillow and proclaiming, “Sheesh, the house certainly does clean up well! And that kitchen is truly a dream. I always loved feeling the warmth, whimsy and charm of that house, though I am sure your new place will have all of those qualities and more once you’re through.” We can hope.

She has her own connections to our relocation to Downeast Maine that I’ll skip for now.

So that’s where things stand. Maybe, as a result of all this, my survivors will have less to deal with when I “pass over,” in the old Quaker phrase.

What have your adventures in moving entailed?

I’ve never seen so many eagles in my life

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Their wingspans can reach six feet, extended straight out when soaring.

American bald eagles are majestic birds, among the largest in the air. From the first one I saw, back in the early months of 1977, I’ve found the sight of them to be exciting and inspiring. I was, in fact, one of a handful of folks who saw that first eagle to return to the Yakima Valley of Washington state, an event that prompts one scene in my novel, “Nearly Canaan.”

Since then, I’ve seen hundreds, from the North Cascades and Olympic Peninsula to the upper Mississippi River and the Great Falls of the Potomac, and then New Hampshire and Maine, especially. I loved looking up while working in the yard or swimming backstrokes in the city’s Jenny Thompson pool and seeing an eagle or two overhead.

Since landing the Eastport house in December and all the drives back to Dover, though, I seem to be seeing them everywhere. One Friday, on my way to Dover, I counted a dozen along the way, followed the next day by another just a block away from the Red Barn. It helps, of course, to know what you’re looking for.

Now, I’ve finally been able to photograph one. I’m hoping for more.

The white head and white tail on a black body make for a sure identification.

This one was over Deep Cove in Eastport.

 

On the rail, head to tail

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Apart from a short spur to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, all of the railroad traffic to and from Maine and the rest of the United States runs through Dover. (I’m not sure how much, if any, goes through Canada.)

When we first moved into the house, our younger one started complaining about all the train noises in the night as sand and gravel moved to Boston’s Big Dig construction.

More recently, one my my regrets about the Covid shutdown has been that a number of Amtrak trips I’d hoped to take – to museums and the Boston Symphony’s Friday matinee concerts, especially – instead got scrubbed. And since the Amtrak station was in walking distance of our house, I loved joking about walking to Boston. Ha-ha.

On the other hand, it can be annoying when you get stuck at a railroad crossing downtown while a long freight train passes. I usually lose count somewhere around 120 cars.

Here’s one I managed to shoot from the Oak Street bridge as it waited for the all-clear to continue rolling. Rail traffic, I’ve heard, doesn’t go north-south but rather east-west. Well, Portland’s north of us and Boston’s south. Make of it what you will.

Can’t see the engines up front, can you?

And can’t see the tail, either. Here we are, somewhere in the middle.

A vital extension opens on the community trail

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Dover’s four-mile-long community trail is a gem and has provided more than a few photo ops I’ve shared here at the Barn. Its southern leg starts at the Amtrak station downtown and, until recently, ended unceremoniously at residential Fisher Street with some delightful scenes in-between. Considered the urban leg, it’s paved for bicycle use as well as pedestrians and runners.

The northern leg kicks off at Fourth Street and follows the Cocheco River up to Watson Road, with its waterfalls and dam. One kink in that route – approaching at the Spaulding Turnpike bridge – was cleared up a few years ago, as was improved access to the trail itself at Fourth Street more recently. Some memorable cross-country skiing from the Watson Falls down to the Spaulding and back had me feeling I was up in the White Mountains rather than still inside the city limits.

Now, after being on the drawing board for more than six years, a 2,000-foot-long portion of the rail-to-trail pathway has extended the southern end almost all the way to the Sawyer Mills apartments and made ready access for middle- and high-school students.

No motorized vehicles allowed. What a delightful luxury! I think of the trail as Dover’s own Central Park.

There were complications getting permission to skirt some commercial properties along the way, as well as drainage issues and some serious poison ivy. Remaining railroad ties made walking difficult – forget the bicycle or the baby stroller.

Now that winter’s over, the stretch has been graded and paved and, where necessary, fenced off – in a stylish way, I’d say – and while some final touches remain, it’s already attracting happy pedestrian traffic.

You can bet I’ll be checking it out on my return visits.

It’s somebody’s back yard. Really. An industrial parking lot is just ahead on the trail.