Road Trip: The Lakes Region - well, the miniature version

We took off this week for Central New Hampshire known here as The Lakes Region.  The draw was the 78th Annual League of New Hampshire Craftsmen Fair.  We also discovered two other attractions we didn't even know about when we started.  The glaciers here left big holes in the ground as they retreated and thus, we have an area of glacial lakes.  Most are pretty small - sort of 'ponds' in the Texas state of mind.  However, there are two large ones:  the biggest, Lake Winnipesaukee we are saving for another trip.  The second and third largest, Lake Sunapee and it's sidekick Lake Newfound (kind of a big, big pond) were our destination.  The  ski resort above the lake was the site of the Craftsmen's fair.

I must say that Drake went with reservation on this trip.  Shopping is not his thing, and he's seen a whole boatload of really, really bad crafts:  hand thrown pottery in the form of grinning toothbrush holders, lots of tortured stuff with cows or roosters painted on it, amateurish jewelry, lumpy afghans, and out of proportion paintings.  Therefore, he was prepared to endure.  There were eight 'tents', and I could see him steeling himself to go through all eight since he knew I came to see everything.  A transformation happened before we had taken ten steps inside the first tent. 

The quality of the work hovered in the fine arts category.  We were amazed at the level of skill married to artistic  creativity.  It took us over 2 hours to look at the non-numbered tent (big one) that held the works of the painters.  The jewelry rivaled anything I've seen in the most exclusive jewelry store.   Every potter had a piece I coveted.  There was furniture that was beautifully crafted on every level from wood choice to design to execution.  It's impossible to describe the delight of getting to witness so many beautiful items.  Here's the best news:  SOME people will be getting gifts.  I personally scored two new pieces of jewelry, and we bought a painting to commemorate our New Hampshire trip.   What an experience.  We chose to go on the 'dead day' (middle of the week - this is a 10 day event), so we were able to walk around, see everything, talk to the artists all in an uncrowded venue.  When we return to New York City, it will be around the ballet.  If we return to New Hampshire, I would want to be able to see this Fair again - preferably with a big checkbook and an empty trailer.

We also found "The Fells", a historic estate and gardens on Lake Sunapee.  This is the summer home of John Hay, the private secretary to Lincoln.  (He was made famous by Gore Vidal in his book Lincoln)   Hay was also the Secretary of State under President McKinley.  Hay's son and grandson are the ones who designed and enhanced the gardens.  The house is pretty ordinary, but the gardens are quite special.   The sunken gardens at the back of the house are reminiscent of the quarry garden of the Butchart Gardens in Victoria, British Columbia.  This garden is composed of alpine plants planted alongside a series of steps that take you down into an area under a hill.  

    Here I am standing kind of in the middle of this.  You really can't see the flowers since they are quite subtle, but there are flowers surrounding me.  As we approached the bottom of this garden, there was a fringe of trees, and lo and behold!  There was a blooming dogwood tree.  Yes, I know it's the middle of August, but I've seen lots of dogwood trees, and this was one.  

If you want to see the flowers (and the dogwood blooms, check out the picture album:     https://picasaweb.google.com/jalyss1/FlowersNewEngland?authkey=Gv1sRgCMLRmKCAnsH2ag#  This is the picture album of all my New England flowers.  The Fell pictures start as you begin to see weird sculptures - there was a sculpture exhibition throughout the gardens which added additional interest. 

Our final stop on this road trip was Dartmouth University.  This is the smallest Ivy League school (about 5000 students).  It is in the Upper Valley Region - this is the upper Connecticut River (the border between Vermont and New Hampshire) and this region is so woven together from both sides of the river - one side Vermont, the other side New Hampshire, that in colonial times, this area petitioned to become a separate state.  Dartmouth is in Hanover which sits on the New Hampshire side of the Connecticut River.  The college was founded in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock who today lends his name to the main drag in Hanover.  Dartmouth has produced many famous graduates.  My favorite is the one who didn't graduate, Robert Frost. 

The river was source of prosperity (trade) since it runs down the length of New Hampshire/Vermont and feeds into the Atlantic.  The town is full of Federalist era buildings, most of which we just glimpsed.  Our target was the Hood Museum which is the art museum of Dartmouth.  My guidebook describes this as having 'an outstanding world class collection covering almost every historical period from the ancient forward'.  My, my, we all know I couldn't pass THAT up.  Let's just say that I wasn't disappointed.  Dartmouth University was a beautiful collection of red brick buildings, that had been gradually added to the campus over the past 250 years.  At the peak of summer, this was definitely a very attractive place and it was filled with sophomores since the Dartmouth curriculum requires sophomores to take the summer term and spend it on campus.

The art museum was filled with gifts from alumni - some really amazing pieces.  As always, the pictures tell the story of the museum:  https://picasaweb.google.com/jalyss1/2011NewHampshireTour6DartmouthHoodMusuem?authkey=Gv1sRgCLKTjrHExpf_9wE# 

The Mountains

One of the things I've discovered about myself in our travels is that I really get a deep satisfaction viewing mountains.  This never tires, bores, or I take for granted.  Each morning, my first impulse is to look out the picture windows in this house and appreciate these elderly, rounded, soft green Appalachian Mountains.  Green is such an inadequate word.  We're at the peak of summer here; however, the green of these mountains is already looking a little tired, dark hearted and wishful of rest.   The most notable difference between the Cascades or the Sierra Nevada, or any other chain of the Rocky Mountains is not only the height, but also the composition.  The Rockies are in your face, unrelenting, daunting. 

I told Drake today that these Appalachians seem like elderly people nodding off for their afternoon nap.  They seem to slump in gently rounded shapes.  There's nothing pointed or jagged even where the glaciers have scraped them to pale stone.  They aren't dramatic and imposing shouting look at me, look at my stone marvels like the northern Cascades or the Sierra Nevada.  Those ranges are proud, erect, towering and intimidating.  Of course, many of them are at least double or triple the height of these New Hampshire mountains.  The osteoporosis of millions of years has overtaken the Appalachians.
 
These gently rolling mountains sleepily smile and prepare to flash their secret to the world.  The vegetation of the Cascades and the Nevada is just as erect, towering and bristling as the mountains it stands on.  The western mountains coverage is always a steady, unchanging verdant landscape  of evergreens.  Juniper, spruce, pine, and fir both dot and crowd the landscape interspersed with jagged multi-colored sharp stone.

Not so in the Appalachians.  Rampant logging has left behind a few evergreens in a deciduous forest that makes the summer green of these mountains undulate in shades of forest, emerald, jade, pine, viridian, moss, hunter, and olive.  As the weather cools, all those shades of green will transform into vermilion, crimson, maroon, rust, terra cotta, butter, mustard, gold and amber.  That's the hidden secret shared with the world each fall.  It's why we're here.  Today I saw a sumac; a tiny little tree, which already had one blood red  leafed limb standing out among twenty cool green waving limbs.  This was a little tease of the show to come. 

I think as they slowly transform with each day unfolding into a more beautiful show, these White Mountains, these Appalachians, will find a cherished niche in my heart and in my mind's eye, just as the majestic Cascades slowly putting on their white finery did last year.

One of the things that frames these New Hampshire mountains are the clouds floating across, over and around the mountains and scudding along the baby blue sky.  If you like to play the cloud game of finding shapes, this is your land.  The sky and clouds here are as soft as the rounded mountains.  It's such a contrast to the hard, sharp deep sky blue of the desert,  and if a cloud appears, it looks like a sparse comet tail pushing across the hard blue.  In the White Mountains, the clouds are always surrounded by friends, that push together, pull apart, reform, and even argue changing to a dull gray and frowning down the mountains as they sprinkle their rain. 

Sometimes, these white, white clouds tiptoe stealthily down the mountainsides.  Other times, they boil over and rush in a white thick comforter across the mountains smothering and obscuring them. 

Each morning I look out to check the clouds, to see what games they will be playing.  Is it any wonder that this place soothes me?  These mountains lull and comfort rather than challenge.  I impatiently await their finery.