8/21. Colophon - Summing Up

Restored Maritime Home,
Salem MA.

   
A colophon is the traditional way for a publisher to insert on the last page of a book comments about the publishing and design choices that were made during the production process. I like the sound of the word so I’ll use it to wrap up this blog of my summer 2010 vacation.

  

The vacation started on 7/20/2010 with a flight from SFO to BOS and ended on 8/5/2010 with the return flight from BOS to SFO. A blog entry was made for each day, but the actual posting date was about a week later. The delay was to give time for processing the photos. The URL for the blog is:
                      
http://nhtwo-fingertyping.blogspot.com/

  

                    
The reader who wants to read about events chronologically may wish to skip to the 7/20 SFO to BOS entry, which is the last entry in the BLOG ARCHIVE that appears on the right. You can then read up the archive list. Confusing, but that seems to be how this blog software works. The actual date described in each entry is given in the entry title and at the start of each entry.

  

The title of the blog, Two-finger typing (actually two fingers and a thumb), comes from the way I used the virtual keyboard on the Apple iPad, which was where the blog drafts were written. Casual bumps of the virtual keypad by stray fingers cause strange typing errors to appear in the text. At times these errors made my text unreadable, so I switched from touch typing to using two fingers for letters and the right thumb for the space bar—slow but more accurate. 

  

                     
We had a great vacation and want to thank all the people who made that possible.

                             

A selection of the photos taken on the vacation was posted to an album on Google's Picasa web photo site. The album is linked to the on line blog on Blogspots. (Click the Album cover photo to bring up the album.)

               

Loose Ends: today, 8/21, I finished the eBook Blood Harvest, a book I downloaded at the Starbucks in Keene, NH. It is a thriller set in the English countryside. A serial killer is on the loose and the vicar of the church and a psychiatrist must find the killer to save a 2 year old girl from a horrible end. It's the kind of book you can read on airplanes amid all sorts of distractions. It is a good read, as they say, but not for the squeamish.
  
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/apr/25/blood-harvest-sj-bolton-review
  

Such is vacation reading material. 

   

After reading three novels on my iPad,  I think it has proven itself as a delightful eBook reader. However, its funny keyboard takes some getting used to.
  

Cheers.

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8/05. Flying home BOS to SFO

(8/05 - Thursday)

Old Town Hall, Salem.

We got up at 6:00 am to see a grey day, but the weather forecast was for sun and temperature in the 90s. The San Francisco weather was expected to be cool; high 60s. Seems that California is having an especially cool summer; not so for the East.

  

Salem was an excellent choice for last night of vacation. It was so nice to be right in the middle of the historical center and waterfront.

  

We were packed by 7:00 and ready for breakfast downstairs at the pub.  One egg, sausage and toast with home fries. There were too many fries and they were heavy; I didn't eat any. My breakfast was not as good as last night supper of broiled Haddock. (Jean reports that her breakfast of cereal + fruit wasn't too bad.)

  

We started on our 30-minute drive to Logan airport about 8:00, but we first needed to put gas in the rental car. The first gas station we found was a BP in Salem. We were met by an enthusiastic attendant who asked if we wanted a fill up and then he proceeded to fill the tank for us. It's been years since an attendant has pumped gas for me. BP must be trying to restore their image, which has been ruined by their gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico.

  

The drive to Logan was uneventful. We did, however, use the GPS to help navigate. Our only problem was on the second traffic circle where I drove right past our exit. Fortunately, I didn’t exit the circle so I got a second chance—“recalculating, recalculating” cried the Garmin’s GPS voice as I went the full 360 degrees to the correct exit. Can't say enough good words about the Garmin GPS for vacation driving. 

NPS Visitor Center,
Children's Discovery Room.

  
The flight from BOS to SFO lasted 6 hr and some minutes due to head winds. But, for the passengers in the rear of the plane it may have seemed longer; United ran out of food before they were served. The plane arrived practically on schedule. Hooray!

  

We took the Supper Shuttle door-to-door van home ($40 including tip).  The driver seemed especially pleased with the tip. I think people are not tipping - perhaps because of the economic downturn.

  

Supper was dim sum - we walked to a Chinese take-out on California Ave. I wanted to eat quickly, because I was starved after the flight.  The supper was OK, but not up to the high standard we had been receiving on our vacation.

  

Welcome Home.

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8/04. Salem and witches

(8/04 - Wednesday)

Grey day today, but it isn't raining, yet.

Spider waiting to be
packed for Sunapee Fair.

   
Yesterday, Jean called Salem Waterfront Hotel for reservations.  The reservations clerk at the hotel was very enthusiastic, exclaiming "fantastic" when Jean said she would take the offered room for a night. The hotel is located on the historic Salem waterfront, only 15 miles from the airport.

  

We were planning to leave Conway by 10:00 am for the 2 hr drive to Salem and packing went according to schedule leaving us time to visit Nate's Workshop where he was finishing the packing of glass for Sunapee Fair. He will fill a rental truck with works for his booth at the fair.
   

Masts of Schooner
As Seen From Hotel.

   
We arrived in Salem in good order about 1:00 pm and parked in the hotel parking lot. The room wasn't ready yet so we left the bags in the car and headed out for lunch and sight seeing. We ate next door to the hotel at the Derby Fish and Lobster Corp.  Jean had a lobster roll, which was very good. Hotel desk clerk recommended the restaurant.

We next toured the Derby Dock where the square-rigger, New Friendship of Salem, is moored alongside the Boott wharf. But before going aboard for a first-hand look we watched a 15-minute movie at the NPS Orientation Center. After the boat tour we headed back to the Salem Waterfront Hotel to check-in. The hotel offers free Internet, WiFi in the rooms and a guest computer in lobby. The red trail marking the route through historical Salem village is right outside the hotel.

The red line marks the trail
through historic Salem.

   
We walked, in humid 92 degrees heat, up Hawthorne St. (named after Nathaniel Hawthorne) along the red painted path through Historical Salem.  We went past the Peabody Essex Museum (no time to visit this famous museum today) and entered into the air-conditioned NPS Visitor Center and watched another movie, "Where Past is Present". Both of the NPS movies we watched today were great.

  
Near the end of our walk we passed the Old Town Hall where the play, Cry Innocent, about the Salem Witch Trials is presented. The audience sits as jury for the trial and is asked to judge the accused. 

http://www.salemoldtownhall.com/
  

The old cemetery, known as the Charter Street Cemetery, is down the street from the Old Town Hall. Buried there is the presiding judge of the trials, John Hawthorne, and carved out of the corner of the cemetery lies a memorial to the Innocents executed when found guilty; ironic, no? Of course, the bodies of the victims are not in the cemetery; it is said that the family of a hanged person would take the body of their family member from the scaffold in the dark of night to a private burial outside of sacred ground.

   

Old Town Hall is the earliest surviving municipal structure in Salem, Massachusetts (dating from 1816-17) and an outstanding Federal Style building. The second floor of the building, Great Hall, has always been used as a public hall, and contained Town offices until 1837. The first floor, originally designed as a public market, is now being used as a public art space, in conjunction with Artists Row in the Marketplace. The building was was closed when we walked by.

We ate dinner at the Regatta Pub downstairs in the hotel. Catch of the day was Haddock; it was good and so were the freshly cooked veggies; even the coffee was good. Traveler's luck, I guess.

Tomorrow we fly home to Palo Alto.

Boott Wharf with schooner
Friendship of Salem

P.S. At the NPS visitor center I was stumped by a trick question: "How many witches were hanged during the Salem witch hysteria? I could not remember whether it was 16 or 19. The official NPS answer: None, the hanged were all innocent!


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8/03. Fog and a dead mouse

(8/03 - Tuesday) 

   

Pequawket Pond.

   
It was 7 am - I was reading William Styron whose moody Lie Down in Darkness seems to fit the morning weather (fog and drizzle) on this last full day of the NH vacation. The book is set during WW II in Virginia where the protagonist, Loftis, is a browbeaten lawyer who is arriving by train to his home town on the seacoast for the funeral of his oldest daughter. The action of the book including the funeral will take place during that sorrowful day. 
     
The author develops the story of the lives of the major characters through inner dialogs, soliloquies and flashbacks. It is a book of the country club centered South of old money, boozing and decadence. 
   
No one was stirring while I read Styron’s words on the screen of the iPad; Not even a mouse-- the mouse having run across Charlie's baited mouse trap during the night. The mouse was first discovered by us last night during the Red Sox game when we saw it scurry behind the stereo CD-player in the living room. The trap was baited with peanut butter, fatal attraction for mice it turns out.  
   

Today Nate will travel to Maine to pick up two pieces of his art from a gallery. The pieces will be on display at the Sunapee fair next week. The fair is stagged  annually by the League of NH Craftsmen and is one of the most prestigious fairs in New England.   

The first NH Craftsmen’s Fair was held in 1933 in the Crawford House barn in Crawford Notch. Throughout the years the fair had been held in various locations, but in 1964 the Fair was moved to Mount Sunapee State Park (now Mount Sunapee Resort) in Newbury and that has become the permanent location. 

http://www.nhcrafts.org/craftsmens_fair/fair_home.html

I’ve never been to the fair, which always begins on the first Saturday in August and runs for 9 days, 10am-5pm, daily, rain or shine. Read more about Sunapee Fair on the league web site:

      

Chimney at old CCC camp, Blackberry Crossing.

This morning after breakfast we drove the Kancamagus Highway. The plan was to stop at Lower Falls on the Swift River, then visit Blackberry Crossing where Jean’s father was superintendent of the CCC camp starting in 1936 or 1937, and then we would travel over Bear Notch Road to Bartlett. From Bartlett we planned to drive to Conway via N. Conway and West Side Road. Some years ago I traveled this circuit on my bicycle; it’s quite scenic and not too strenuous for a bicyclist.

       

There were swimmers at Lower Falls braving the cool weather. We had a pleasant walk along the bank, but were not tempted to go into the water.

Plaque honoring CCC camps
Blackberry Crossing Camp, Swift River.

Out next stop was the Blackberry Crossing campground, which is the site of the former Swift River CCC Camp. At one time there were 4 CCC barracks and about 200 volunteers in this camp. The CCC voulunteers worked on the Kancamagus Highway and on forestry projects along the Swift River. The link below is to an article published in the Mountain Ear about the White Mountain CCC camps. 


http://www.newhampshirelakesandmountains.com/Articles-c-2009-09-09-149458.113119_Civilian_Conservation_Corp_camps_from_the_30s_dot_the_Valley.html

All that remains of the Swift River camp are two large brick chimneys. There are plaques explaining the site; one of them shows a picture of F. R. Macomber, Jeans father. The camp provides pleasant camp sites and has a resident camp manager in the summer.  
  

Camp Superintendent F. R. Macomber
(3rd from left).

     

The trip over the mountain to Bartlett and back to Conway went off without a hitch. Evening meal was lobster linguini, which used the leftover lobster from last night's feast. We continue to eat very well.

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8/02. Gallery Hopping

(8/02 - Monday)

Sun shining through
the glass, Nathan. 

   
Started the day writing in my blog and uploading photos from the camera - I have drafts for 3 travel days on-line ready to add photos and publish, but will have to finish the blog after we return get home.  The Microsoft Media program works OK to get photos ready for the WWW, but I prefer Photoshop. 

  

Today we plan to visit the White Mountain Artisans Gallery in North Conway, which shows Nathan’s glasswork. The gallery has a large selection of Nate's work from drinking glasses to hanging globes to large plates and multi-colored rondels. I was impressed by the way the sun picks up the colors in the glass as in the photo on the left.

  

Spider, Spider,
On the Wall.

  
The gallery also has work by many other NH craftspeople and artisans. There are photographers who are showing some particularly good shots of the mountains in the Presidential Range. We found some small textile baskets that were light-weight and cleverly done that particularly interested us. Downstairs there is a selection of handmade furniture. Quite an impressive gallery. Outside the gallery, there is mounted on the wall a large black glass and metal spider, Nathan’s creation.

  

http://www.whitemountainartisansgallery.com/

http://www.macomberglass.com/

  

We found a deli serving organic food in the same building as the gallery so we had lunch before returning to the farm. Traffic through N. Conway was a mess as usual for the summer, but the by-pass road helps.

  

In the evening we had fresh boiled Maine Lobster and salad; after dinner we marched over to the farm to sample Stephanie’s desert.  We have been eating well on this trip.

  

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8/01. Mt Washington Discovery Museum

(8/01 - Sunday)

Weather Station Mock-up,
Mt. Washington Observatory Museum.

  
The Mt Washington Discovery Museum is across the street from the Eastern Slope Inn in N. Conway. The museum houses displays about the weather observatory atop Mt. Washington and the important collection of 1937 aerial photographs of the White Mountains taken by Brad Washburn. 

  

http://www.mountwashington.org/

  

Brad and Barbara Washburn have donated the complete portfolio of 63 negatives from the 1937 Washburn Collection to the Mt. Washington Observatory. Brad is an author and photographer; his first book, published in 1926, was a guidebook to the Presidential Range. He is also well known for his landscape photography and his challenging aerial shots of Mt. Washington, which he took through an open airplane door while flying low over the snowy peaks.

  

The images on the Washburn website have been drum scanned from Brad’s original negatives to a digital file. All of these images can be ordered in print form in a variety of sizes, framed or unframed. The images on display in the museum are stunning. The collection can be viewed on-line at:

  

http://www.washburngallery.org/

  

We returned home via Jonathon's Seafood where Charlie bought Lobster Rolls for our lunch. What a great lunch we had. (Jean was at her Kennett HS class reunion at the Eagle Mountain House in Jackson - she missed our lunch.)

  

For evening supper we loaded the 7 of us into two cars and headed for Flatbread Company in N. Conway. Delicious flatbreads cooked in the wood oven.

  

http://www.flatbreadcompany.com/2007Home.htm

  

This was a day to celebrate the White Mountains and good food.

Retired Snocat
Mt Washington Discovery Museum
N. Conway, NH.

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7/31. Libraries and Boulders

(7/31 Saturday)

Architect Drawing,
Conway Public Library 1900.

  
The sun came up on another nice summer day in New Hampshire; it was somewhat cooler than the day before.  I started the day with a light breakfast and edited the draft of the first Lowell blog entry (7/22/2010). The entry was ready to post, but first I needed to upload photos from my camera to the WWW. 

  

In the afternoon we went to the Conway Public Library, which is outstanding. It is housed in a classic New England brick building recently modernized with a new wing. There is ample reading room, ample book stacks, computer terminals, WiFi,  and a children’s reading room. The library has many original furnishings and  on the walls are paintings by local artists, historical photographs and documents. In the children’s reading room is a wood caving by Rodney Woodard, master craftsman and friend of the Macombers.
  
The Henney History room, dedicated to Conway and Carrol County historical archives and study is in the basement of the library.

  

From the Library web site: The Conway Public Library began as the Conway Village Library Association, which was created in 1895 by the Conway Woman’s Club and other interested citizens. The core of the modern library dates from 1900 when the widow, Lydia, and daughter, Sarah, of Dr. Thomas L. Jenks, presented the town with an imposing library, topped by clock tower and bell. The building was completed before the end of the year 1900, and costs about $45,000.

Front Door and Bell Tower,
The time was correct.

  

The sturdy foundation of the library was quarried from the Washington Boulder on Pine Hill in Conway. Photographs of the construction of the library may be seen on the wall above the fireplace in the main reading room of the library. 

Stereopticon Slide of Washington Boulder.

  
The Washington Boulder was on the path between Conway and North Conway Strip. Composed of Conway Granite, the boulder was a popular afternoon hike from both Conway and North Conway villages. The boulder was demolished at the turn of the century. Part of this granite was used as the foundation at the Conway Public Library in 1900. A stereopticon slide of the Boulder is on display in the Conway Historical Society website.
  

http://www.conwayhistory.org/conway_photos1.html

  

The Washington Boulder and other similar boulders were carried far from their mountain origins to their locations in the valley by glaciers during the last Ice Age. They were easy to quarry for building material and have largely disappeared, but the nearby town of Madison has taken steps to protect its boulder. The Madison Boulder is the largest known glacial erratic in New England and one of the largest in the world. It measures 83 feet in length, 37 feet in width and 23 feet in height and weighs more than 5,000 tons. A17-acre plot of land around the boulder was acquired by the state in 1946 and designated as the Madison Boulder Natural Area. The boulder was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1970.
  

http://www.nhgeology.org/photo.htm

  

It’s surprising what you come across nosing around town as a tourist.

Rodney Woodard Carving,
Children's Reading Room, Conway Public Library.

  
P.S. A web search for 'Rodney Woodard' did not provide any material on this master craftsman whose workshop was in North Conway. Mr. Woodard designed and produced the wooden gavel used at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944. The conference site is now the Mt. Washington Hotel near the base of the Cog Railway.
  
P.P.S. Jean went to a Kennett High School alumni dinner in the evening - missed the great dinner at Charlie's. Of course we continue to eat well.
  

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