It's certainly NOT New York City when a big, big black bear ambles across the road in front of our car just before we turned into the resort where we rented the ski chalet. OK, call me crazy, but I have a morbid fear of BEARS. I don't want to see any, and I really, really don't want to acknowledge that they live anywhere near me. Even cautious people get eaten by bears. Somebody got EATEN in Yellowstone Park today by a bear!!!!! As we drove toward New Hampshire, I nervously asked Drake if he thought there would be any bears. "I don't know, honey, but don't worry about it." Yeah, right. Damn bear strolled across the highway, right in front of our car. Why should he care? He could EAT our car if he wanted to. New Hampshire has started off with a big black check mark. Not a good first impression.
We arrived at the ski chalet to discover that someone cornered the kitsch market. Kitsch is decorating your entire house with a 'theme' like cows or pigs or chickens. Kitsch is covering every square inch with 'something'. This house is decorated with ski memorabilia - like the crossed wooden child's skis and poles above the picture window, or the "Eat, Sleep, Ski" wooden sign above the door, the ancient wooden ski that you bump into every time you walk into the kitchen, and the ski theme is combined with bird house lamps, chintz curtains, multiple pictures (usually depicting some ski activity), as well as china plates, gray concrete flower wall tiles, dried flower arrangements, antique snow shoes hanging on a wall, twenty-five candles in every shape, size and variety with candle holders that range from Christmas to yell and green and 18" tall. There is also lots and lots and lots of heavy wooden furniture. Drake, the world's biggest fan of house minimalism, could barely breathe after he'd been here for an hour.
Drake believes that the perfectly decorated house looks like the model home of an upscale housing development. Functional, spare furniture with one perfectly centered bowl on a single coffee table as the only decoration in the room. He and I have struggled for years to find some happy medium between functional minimalism and decorating in a way that LOOKS like someone lives there. Fortunately, as I've always said, my decorating ability has always been to put up another bookcase. I'm hopeless at decoration, and I can imagine myself running to excess without the balance of my minimalist partner. I do agree, however, that this decoration is over the top, way, way over the top. The first thing I did here was to stash at least 40% of the removable decorations. At least when they were out of sight, Drake began to feel better.
Decoration aside, and bears aside, the views here are very New England. We're at about 5000 feet on the top of a gently rounded mountain and surrounded by a fir trees sprinkled among a dozen different kinds of deciduous trees including quaking aspen. I spotted them the first day, and I thought, "No, can't be - don't those only grow in the west?" Well, they do grow here, and we have several that I can see from the abundant windows. This house is actually made out of plaster, and the walls are very, very thick. It's got roll-out windows, several on each wall. It makes for nice cross-breezes and excellent scenery I won't belabor the nice weather for all you southern and southwestern summer sufferers.
We live only a few miles from three 'villages'. Barbara, the lady who runs the Franconia Welcome Center, explained to me that there are no towns up here, but rather, villages. The 'village' of Franconia has about 900 people, Sugar Hill (yes, lots of maple trees and a cheese factory) has 700 people, and Easton has about 300 people. These three villages all cooperate on certain services. For instance, there's no garbage pick up here. You have to take your garbage and your recycle to the joint Transfer Station - the address of which was not listed anywhere - because everyone knows where it is, of course. Tomorrow, I'm going to the Franconia Library which has bizarre hours. Sugar Hill also has a library, but they haven't graduated to using Library Cards yet.
Barbara, the welcome lady, is going to be a wealth of information. Her domain is a tiny house on the main drag of Franconia. It looks like a child's playhouse with a front porch) It has a double wide dutch door - those are the ones that the top half opens and the bottom doesn't. You don't get to go into the little house to pick up stuff - it's controlled access. Barbara's a retired banker who's lived in the area her entire life. She sniffed derisively at some of her contemporaries who now live in warmer climes. I did get the definite feeling that she's really tough. I actually had to almost beg for some of the info. She confided to me that she doesn't like to give out certain things to MOST people. I felt really honored when she bestowed a couple of hidden brochures on me. As Drake says, I can get along with anybody. I think it's going to be an interesting relationship. She also clued me in to the best restaurant in the area.
We also live about 5 miles from Bethlehem. It's another village with two golf courses and about a dozen bed and breakfast establishments. Franconia looks like real people co-exist here with the tourists. Bethlehem looks owned by tourists. It's just too quaint. (Did have some super homemade ice cream there today, though.) Sugar Hill has three buildings. I heard a hilarious story today. It seems there are three little old ladies in Sugar Hill who decided that they needed to feature the spring wildflowers of the area, so they single handedly devised the Lupine Festival - they created a 20 page booklet and a full weekend's worth of activities. Gotta love those civic minded little old ladies. I understand one of them owns the cheese factory in Sugar Hill, and the other two the general store I'm hoping to meet them.
On the personal front, I'm trying to recuperate and get settled in. There are always a few things that you need. We are used to having our own stuff, so usually what we need is some fill in furniture. Here we're buying stuff like a chopper, small covered bowls, good kleenex, a door mat. We've had the oil burner guy out because the hot water was weird - sure enough a thermostat was malfunctioning. He gave Drake the short course in oil burner technology. We have a 'tankless' system for hot water. The guy was quite interested when Drake described water heaters to him. They just don't have them up here.
In the few days we've been here the most exciting thing we've done is attend the Franconia 4th of July celebration. We ate sweet sausages on strange hot dog buns that at first glance looked like pieces of white bread folded in half but weren't. This event was called a BBQ, although none was in evidence, and benefited the fire department. I went to the library book sale, and the flea market sale that benefited the food bank. (Yes, already located that. Next week, I'm going to drop by and see what volunteer help they need. ) We entered the Duck Race - hundreds of plastic ducks dropped in the Gale River (which runs thru Franconia) with the winning duck (not mine) getting $500. The Duck Race was started when the town cannon fired. It was loud enough to make everyone jump.
Mostly we watched the parade - it was very Norman Rockwell traditional with local pick up bands playing as they rode sitting down on folding chairs in flatbed trucks covered with crepe paper streamers, all the other floats were home made, and there was a single WWII vet in his Navy officer's uniform riding on the trunk lid of an open convertible to start the parade. It was all red, white, and blue except for the local dairy that handed out Holstein colored ballons from its float. The red and yellow villages' firetrucks were there, all blasting their airhorns. (I wondered at the time what would have happened if someone in the vicinity had a fire.) There were even a couple of groups touting local political causes marching in a ragtag formation in matching day glow orange T-shirts (STOP the NORTH PASS). There were families on bikes dressed in costumes. I especially liked the float comprised of women of a certain age dressed with accents of leopard such as hats, scarfs, tops, etc. and, no, I have no clue what that was all about, but they were having a great time. This was all accompanied by the Mayor of Franconia doing loudspeaker play by play of the parade from the steps of the City Hall Building. (NEXT, WE HAVE THE BERLIN JAZZ BAND - BE AT THEIR CONCERT IN BETHLEHEM NEXT SUNDAY AT THE GAZEBO) This was a quintessential Independence Day Celebration, and it was more fun than I imagined such a small town affair would be.
That's about it. We have really been homebodies since we got here. First, and foremost, I'm trying to let my foot recover. I stressed it to the maximum in New York, and it needs to rest. Second, we went someplace for 30 days straight, and I was ready to just stay home and relax. Relaxing is what this place is, and it is wonderful for SLEEPING. It's silent, and it's cool. I don't have to listen to white noise here to be able to get to sleep. There is lots to so and see around here, but I'm just not ready to start touring yet. As we all know, that won't last, and I'll be regaling you with New England sights, historical lore, and stories soon. Adios from New Hampshire. I'm afraid that's as close as I'm going to get to Mexican food for quite some time.
