New England: Second half of vacation

The second half of our vacation (days 5 through 9) in New England consisted of a lot more activities, including a relaxing evening watching an outdoor play under the stars, an amazing whale-watching excursion, and actually ending up in jail the last day of our trip!  Avery also got to visit the state of Maine for the first time.

Thursday morning (day five) we took the short hike up Rock Rimmon in Manchester.  It is a rock overlooking the city.  The face of it is popular with rock climbers, but since Avery was on our hiking backpack we hiked up the backside.

On the way down Avery fell asleep in the backpack!

Then we drove into downtown Manchester and walked around the old mills.  We took a quick step into the Merrimack River.  The water is very clear through this part.  The contrast of blue sky, red brick, green vegetation, and blue water was neat.

And Colleen was her normal self, heaving plastic bottles out of the river!

Then we walked around the mills that have been converted into tech businesses and restaurants.  Texas Instruments, Autodesk, UNH technology graduate school, plus others have offices there.

Then we left Avery with grandma to babysit while we headed out to Portsmouth.  We took a run along the beach past the mansions in Rye, and then swam in the water to cool off.  The ocean sure is "wicked cold" even in July, it helped us cool off though!

We drove into downtown Portsmouth and had dinner at Poco's Bow Street Cantina on the deck overlooking the Piscatagua River.   After Margaritas, fish and shrimp tacos, and dessert, Colleen took home a nice souvenir glass.

We then over to Prescott Park and watch the play of Wizard of Oz.  It was a beautiful night to sit under the stars and watch the play on the waterfront!  Here is the area about an hour before it started, while they were setting up

The best part was the munchkin land.  They casted local kids to play the parts, and they were so funny.  One little girl was so small she kept getting knocked over by accident by the others!
Friday (day six) we left Avery with grandma again to babysit, and headed up to North Conway. On the way up we stopped to see Colleen's favorite lake, Lake Chocorua
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocorua_lake
(fun fact, Jim wrote that Wikipedia page, and that photo on the wikipedia webpage is his too!)

Up in North Conway we went to Attitash Mountain, a ski resort that has a lot of great summer activities too.  The longest alpine slide in North America is there

http://www.attitash.com/alpineslide.html

A lot of people had bumps and scrapes from flying off the thing.  Luckily we both stayed on on both of our trips down!

Plus there is a new ride called the Mountain Coaster, where you control the speed of the roller coaster on the way down (you ride in solo coaster cars) down the mountain side.  We also did a water slide, and an aquaboggin (a water tube ride), and the Eurobungy (Colleen did four back flips, Jim did...none).  There was a lot to do with an all access day pass there in the summer.  Definitely check it out if you are in the White Mountains region during the summer!

On the way back to Manchester we stopped in the town of Sandwich, NH to check out the river and potholes.  Jim jumped off the rocks a couple times into the water.  The river is so clear there!

Saturday (day seven) we headed down to Boston to see our friend Christine.  (Christine was the maid of honor at the wedding, and we met in San Diego after randomly talking only to find out that we lived in the same dorm room at UNH 4 years apart!  What are the odds of that in San Diego???  Christine moved back to Boston 5 years ago.) After checking out her new condo in Southie (South Boston), we headed over to Castle Island to have a snack, check out the old fort, and relax in the nice ocean breeze.

We then took the T over to Boston Common, here is Avery on the Red Line, her third different rail transit system she's been on (San Diego, DC, and Boston)

We walked through Boston Common

At Boston Common we walked around and saw the swan boats

And Avery loved the famous "Make Way for Duckling "sculptures.  She was really enamored by them, as you can see from her pointing to them



"I hearby say that all should make way for these ducklings!"

 We passed by "The Garden" where the Bruins play, Jim wanted his pictures by the Stanley Cup banner

We then walked over to the North End for cannoli at a cafe

Avery loves cannoli, just like her daddy!

Then we headed over to the waterfront for dinner and a beer (or three) and enjoyed the great views from the deck.

Avery was the life of the party there, she was entertaining the bartenders, the waitress, and other patrons!

Sunday (day eight) we headed out to the seacoast to have lunch at Petey's one more time

Then headed on a whale-watching tour boat.   One whale breached 29 times in 20 minutes!  The whales were only 40-50 yards away doing this too!  These are some of our favorite pictures that we captured, amazing!

The ride out and back to "Jeffrey's Ridge", an underwater ridge where whales feed on fish, was a nice 75 minute ride out past the Isles of Shoals, and a great smooth ocean that day put Avery to sleep for pretty much the entire trip

Then we headed up the seacoast to Cape Neddick, Maine to see the famous lighthouse there

The only way for the keepers to get to the island is by this little cart and pulley system, see the cart on the far side of the water?

We took some family photos there:

Afterwards we had dinner by the Portsmouth Harbor overlooking the sailboats.

Monday, (the 9th full day of our trip) our last full day, we headed up to the Sunapee Lake region to enjoy swimming at the crowded beach there.  The water was crystal clear (as usual in NH!) and very refreshing.

It was a nice warm clear day, the Sunapee Lake State Beach was very crowded!

After our swim, Avery enjoyed a nice lunch picnic under the shade tree while she dried off

Then went down to the docks so Jim could run and jump off the docks like a little kid and had ice cream by the lakefront.  For our last dinner we headed into Concord, NH and ate at Margaritas, a Mexican restaurant in an old city jail house.  A lot of the tables are in old jail cells, here we are locked up!

We came back to Manchester to pack up and get ready for our flight home.  We were saying how we only got to about half the things we wanted to do, so we should "summer" in NH each year to have 2-3 months to get everything done.  There is so much to do here in New England during the summer!

New England, Day Three and Four

Tuesday was a relaxing day at the coast, and Wednesday was an adventure filled day up in the mountains!

Tuesday July 5th was a beautiful summer day in New England.  We went for a jog in the morning with Avery through Livingston Park around the lake on the trail and boardwalk.

After cleaning up we headed out to the Seacoast and Portsmouth again (after a quick stop at The Bagelry again in Durham!).  We first stopped at the Seacoast Science Center in Rye
http://www.seacoastsciencecenter.org/
It is a great location right on the coast and is a real bargain at $5 a person.  They have information on the geological history of the east coast bays and harbors, biological information on the sea life, information on how ships navigate, on how lobster and fishing catches are done, and interactive exhibits where kids can touch starfish, muscles, etc.

Avery loved the lobster traps

and the buoys

And the row boat

She also loved the interactive exhibits where she could feel starfish and look at seahorses

And of course trying on the lobster hat at the gift shop

Then we sat on the rocks overlooking the coast.  Avery loved playing in the rocks

And waved at all the boats that were going past!

It was perfect weather with a great sea breeze for hanging out and relaxing

Then we headed into Portsmouth and walked around the shops before dinner.  We had coffee at our favorite coffee shop:  Breaking New Grounds, and we stopped at multiple toy stores including G. Wilikers, Macroscopic, and Marco Polo.

Captain Avery loved trying on hats at the toy store

Captain Avery with her lobster catch:

With the hat on she started walking and the hat fell over her eyes, she couldn't see where she was going and was stumbling all the over the place and finally fell down.  The workers were cracking up, they said she looked like a drunken sailor!  It was so funny and cute we wish the video was on at the time!

We really love Portsmouth, the downtown is so neat and walkable, and the town was settled in 1623, the buildings are so historic and the streets are narrow, and everything is brick with the classic New England church steeple:

We then ate dinner at The River House.  We sat on the deck overlooking the harbor and the tug boats!

Avery was very patriotic overlooking the harbor at dinner:

The lobster rolls were awesome there, we definitely recommend it if you are looking for dinner out on a deck overlooking the river if you are in Portsmouth.
http://www.riverhouse53bow.com/

Then we headed over to the Portsmouth Brewery for a nice blueberry beer.

The blueberries they put in that beer are like a lava lamp, they float up and down as they fill up and release bubbles!

After the beer, we headed over to the harbor and took a great sunset cruise

We saw a lot of neat sites and they narrate a lot of the history of the harbor from the first Europeans, to the Revolutionary war, and all the way up to present time.  This old prison is the "Alcatraz of the east coast"

It was used as a prison on an island in the harbor where the water is really cold and tidal currents are very dangerous making it impossible to escape from.  It is abandoned and creepy now, but we think would make a great hotel if they refurbished it with the great view!

Coming back into the Portsmouth harbor you can really see how neat it is, it is a classic beautiful New England town on the water

After we got off the boat, we found out that the Portsmouth fireworks were that night (on the 5th) because they were cancelled the night before due the rain in the area.  We walked over to a viewing spot and watched them.  Avery actually loved them, she wasn't scared at all, she just pointed to them!


We finally drove back to Manchester at 10:30pm with Avery (and us) worn out from such a busy day.

Wednesday July 6th we drove up to Lincoln, NH to do the zip line tour there.  It was ranked 4th best in the nation in a Top 10 zip lines in the country.  We don't have any pics (since we obviously couldn't take our nice camera on the ride), but it was a great time.  There were a few really high zips that went over valleys between peaks, and a "yo-yo" style zip where you drop straight down and then go up the other side, then back down and up again until you finally stop at the bottom.  You get up to 60mph on that one!  If you are ever up in that area during spring, summer, or fall, definitely check it out!  (They are opening up 7 new zips farther up the mountain this year with a faster "yo-yo" style!)
http://www.alpinezipline.com/

Then we headed over to Polar Caves in Rumney, NH.  At the park, before we entered the caves, we let Avery feed the deer, she loved it!  She giggled a lot while the deer ate corn from her hands!

The caves are neat formations in the granite.  Even to this day there are miles of unexplored caves to unknown depths.  We obviously followed the mapped tour.  One cave is called the ice cave because ice stays in until August

It was so cool in there compared to the 80s outside!

There were other neat caves where native Americans used to have council meetings (and arrowheads are in there), another cave was used for bootlegging during prohibition, another cave was used for slaves heading north to Canada on the underground railroad.  Some of the passage ways into the caves were very very narrow:

Colleen carried Avery the whole way (even ducking, crawling, etc) and Avery never once got scared in the dark or cool areas.  She is a real trooper for a toddler, we haven't found anything she doesn't like (except diaper changes!).

Jan followed behind, she was the only grandma to do all the caves that day we thought!  She was great too!  Jim followed behind with the camera to take all the pictures and guide everyone with the map.

To get to the caves there was a series of trails, boardwalks, and staircases through the forest and up a mountain, we all got a great workout:

We then headed down to the outlet malls at Tilton (no sales tax in NH after all), then back to Manchester for some more much needed sleep!

Thursday we are going to Portsmouth for a "date night" while Avery is babysat by her grandma, and we are going to dinner and the outdoor play at Prescott Park on the harbor.  Friday we are going to be up in the lakes region to go river tubing, an Alpine slide  at Attitash Mountain (the longest in North America), then possibly down to Boston for the evening.  We'll catch back up with you all on the blog this weekend.