Posted photos as well.

As I had a lot of extra vacation time and Kyle was short a week of camp before school started, we decided he and I would spend a week in northern Vermont and New Hampshire. I wanted to visit some of the places I grew up visiting and we were also able to spend a few days with my dad and Sharon. We made the six hour drive up to Burlington on Saturday morning, spending Saturday, Sunday, and Monday night with my dad. It turns out that the Wings over Vermont air show was going on that weekend so we headed down to the waterfront on Sunday. It was great to see some cool planes and have a nice lunch on a pier along the harbor front.

On Monday, we headed over to Smugglers Notch to do the hike to Sterling Pond. This was a decent hike and we had a nice time. Afterward, we headed back to Burlington. Tuesday was kind of a dreary day so we spent a couple of hours at the movie theater watching Star Trek Beyond before driving the couple of hours to Littleton to have dinner with Lucy and Bob and Denise. (Ken came home later.) After visiting for a bit, we continued the drive to Lincoln, NH where we checked into Express Inn for three nights.

For Wednesday, we headed up to Franconia Notch, starting with The Flume. The weather was so-so but we figured we’d give it a show. Luckily, it was only foggy and drizzly so was okay. After finishing up, we headed into North Woodstock for lunch at the Landmark II followed by a stop at the candy shop and Fadden’s General Store. Next up was a visit to Lost River Gorge where Kyle had a great time crawling thought the caves. As it was later in the afternoon, we popped back to Lincoln for some make your own sundae at Udderly Delicious. For dinner, we hit El Greco’s Pizza a bit later and then popped up to the Kancamagus Highway from some sunset photography.

We had made plans to meet Carol, Mike, and the kids on Thursday at Clark’s Trading Post. Before heading over, we made the trip up the Cannon Mountain Tramway. Again, the weather looked iffy but turned out to be great. Heading back to Clark’s, we met Carol, Mike, and Courtney as Carley had to work. I remember Clark’s being quite small but I hadn’t been there in probably 30+ years. We ended up spending the entire day from around 11am on. Kyle enjoyed the train ride, the bear show, and, of course, the make your own sundae. Once done there, we headed back to Lincoln and had dinner at Black Mountain Burger Company, stopping for a frappe at Ice Cream Delights.

Normally, we would have stayed one more night in NH, but I had to head to Philadelphia Saturday evening to be there first thing Sunday morning to give my talk at the American Chemical Society meeting. To break up the eight hour drive, we decided to spend a night near Lexington and Concord, Mass to visit Minute Man National Historic Site. We had a nice time there and Kyle was quite patient at the Wayside House tour which turned out to be a bit long and dry. (It was where Nathaniel Hawthorne and Louisa May Alcott lived at various times.) He did get to be “part” of the militia at the Hartwell Tavern musket demonstration.

On Saturday, we headed home, arriving a bit before lunch time. I had a few hours to repack before heading out to the train station to catch the 1 hour ride to Philly. Both of us had an excellent time throughout the week. It was cool to show Kyle some of the stuff I grew up seeing and to see a bunch of my NH relatives.