Alan & Carie's Blog: June 2015

This was an awesome trip! We went to NH (where I relocated from 12+ years ago) to visit family. We dragged the T@B along and made a great camping trip of the visit. Carie had never been to NH or even New England before so that was even cooler for her and we did the family stuff along with the whole touristy thing. We stayed at a great little campground in Northwood, NH called Saddleback Campground. The first full day in NH we did a family picnic at the campground then throughout the week we did a huge variety of things including Segwaying Portsmouth, we went to the USS Albacore/museum, did a Portsmouth harbor cruise which took us out through Portsmouth harbor into the mouth of the Atlantic then back up the Piscataqua River. We went to Hampton Beach where they just happened to be having a sand sculpture competition and that was really fascinating! We went up into the White Mountains and crossed it via the Kancamagus Hwy then went up to the US/Canada border to find a moose for Carie since she has never seen one...we saw three! It was dark by then, though, so the pictures of the moose are not great.There's a lot of pictures with this post so enjoy!

The family picnic at Saddleback Campground...Our campground hosts, owners Les & Nancy were fantastic, very accommodating. Highly recommend Saddleback Campground to anyone visiting NH!

Les trying the Segway.

Nephew Jonny's first time on a Segway

Alan's oldest brother, Steve and daughter Sara.

Great niece Madison catching frogs, although this "frog" in the net is actually snake! She's quite the Tom-boy! LOL!

Nephew Akira, Steve's son, with his frog catching net

Nephews Davin & Jon Segwaying...

Carie holding great nephew Gavin (Nephew Michael's son) with Steve & Sara in the background.

Our campsite setup...

Took Carie by my old house in Nottingham, NH, just a few miles from Saddleback Campground. The ol' place looked great!

Our Portsmouth harbor cruise...

Some British politicians house before the American revolution.

A famous colonial fort the name of which I can't remember...LOL...

I also forgot the name of these boats but this is a replica. They were used to transport the gun powder from Portsmouth to Boston stolen from the British in the first major act of aggression from the colonists towards the British...

The infamous naval prison (forgot the name of it, too :-| ) which closed many years ago.

The USS Albacore submarine/museum, a cold war era submarine. This sub was built and used for testing and had no armament.

Carie at the controls...

UH OH!

Capt' Alan

First mate Carie

Segway Portsmouth and across the memorial bridge to Kittery, ME where we had lunch at Warren's Lobster House restaurant... :-)

Prescott Park & Strawberry Banke in Portsmouth. Normally Prescott Park is vibrant with flowers and plants but a dry Spring coupled with us being there in early June...well, things weren't so vibrant. :-|

One of the famous black bears at the Clark's Trading Post in Lincoln, NH at the West end of the Kancamagus Hwy.

Carie posing at one of the many scenic pull-offs along the Kancamagus ...

Random pics along the Kancamagus...

Alan with an in-your-face selfie with Carie way off in the background.

Zoomed in on Carie

True love in the White Mountains! :-)

This was awesome! This is the Swift River and was a very short walk from one of the camp sites at Jigger Johnson campground along the Kancamagus Hwy. Also signs of moose in the campsite (See photo below) We will definitely be staying here at some point in the future. Probably not until we get our next RV that is fully self contained since all the campgrounds along the Kancamagus are pretty primitive.

Facing North along the river...

...and facing South

At first Carie thought they had 1200 pound rabbits in NH till I informed her this was moose poop, not rabbit. HA! LOL! Note the quarter for size comparison...Gross!

Hancock Campground -

These next few pictures are all taken along the same area...

These next 6 pics were all taken at the Lower Falls scenic area, as the sign says...

Joe Cool at the lower falls...LOL!

Not sure how she got up there!

Awesome swimming area and even had a family/kid friendly natural beach spot seen to the left in the photo below...

11 pics of the Glen Ellis Falls area -

So we went up Rt. 16 on the East side of the Kancamagus and White Mountains in our quest for a moose. We then went across Rt. 26 to Rt. 3 North and up to the U.S./Canada border. I have never had to go that far to see a moose (!) and have always seen them along either Rt. 26 or the lower Rt. 3 area before Pittsburg, NH. We didn't see any on the way up but within 10 miles of the border on the way back we saw two, then a third about an hour and a half or so South. The third guy was standing right in the middle of the road and good thing I was paying close attention because it could have been a disaster! These photos aren't great but it was around midnight that we saw the third moose. We didn't get back to our campsite at Saddleback Campground till 2am!