maine, new hampshire

Next stop, Maine! we turned up in Gorham, ME on Friday afternoon and after cheerful greetings from all family and dogs, settled right in to the back porch with a beer and italians from Amato's. My sister Amy and her husband George were traveling in Italy so their two dogs Django and Annabelle were staying at my parents' house, in addition to my parents' two dogs, Paprika and Juniper. My two cats Buster and Boris are also living there, in addition to 8 baby chickens who were living in a cardboard box in the hallway. On top of all these animals, and Mike and I, Mike's mom Bonnie and her friend Les had come out from Michigan to visit with us in Maine too! so it was a pretty full house. Bonnie and Les had never been to visit Maine or New Hampshire before, so we all wanted to show them the best of New England. On Saturday we drove over to Intervale, New Hampshire to stay in our family's cabin in the White Mountains. We went to visit Jackson Falls, ate lobsters for dinner, enjoyed some beautiful hours relaxing on the screen porch, went for some beautiful hikes in the white mountains. We walked up Mt. Willard trail (aka Bubblegum Hill) with all four dogs and six people, under cloudy skies and by the time we reached the spectacular viewpoint at the top, it had started to rain... on the whole walk down it was pouring buckets!!

in general our time in Maine and NH included a lot of rain, though there were good hot sunny days too. After a few days in Intervale, we went back to Maine for a few days, snacked at a few seafood shacks, explored Portland, joined Amy and George at an idsva fundraiser, had a great dinner at Fore Street, took a ferry out to the islands in Casco Bay.

Mike left us on Thursday evening and then Bonnie and Les headed home on Saturday morning... but we weren't lonely because my Aunt Barbara arrived on Saturday evening to visit for the week! We stayed in Intervale for most of the week. Amy and George and Alicia and Kathy all came up to Intervale too, so we had a cozy visit with lots of family and dogs and good food.
Again, it was so sad when I had to leave. I packed all my suitcases (I had accumulated SO much new stuff to bring home with me to BsAs... I had to take a whole extra suitcase to carry it all!) the night before and early Saturday morning, Judy and Richard drove me down to the Eastern Slope Inn in North Conway, where the bus to Boston stops at 8:25 am. Goodbye to family and goodbye to the mountains and my homeland. Snif.