Venturing Out on Vacation, Part Two: We're Going to Jackson

As mentioned in my previous post, our destination for the first night of our vacation was located in the town of Jackson, New Hampshire so before I get to the lovely inn that we stayed at, I reckon I should tell you a bit about Jackson itself!

Jackson was originally not named Jackson but was called New Madbury after the town of Madbury which is located down near Dover (and Newick's!) and where the original inhabitants were from. Even though the town was settled in 1778 by Benjamin Copp and his family once a road was put through from Pinkham Notch, the town wasn't actually incorporated until December 4th, 1800. At that time the name of the town was changed to Adams in honor of of country's second President, John Adams. The town remained as Adams until 1829 when the name was changed to Jackson to honor President Andrew Jackson.

According to the town's historical society: "While the record, official or otherwise, is unclear as to who instigated the name change, it was motivated in response to the election of President Andrew Jackson, the hero of the Battle of New Orleans. The popularity of President Jackson is reflected in that only one vote was cast for keeping Adams as the name." Kind of makes you feel bad for President Adams, doesn't it?


Around the mid-1800's, Jackson became the hot spot for artists who started flocking to the area so that they could paint the beauty of the area on canvas; once those canvasses were seen lots and lots of other people started visiting so that they could see the beautiful mountains and rivers and vistas for themselves. Honestly, I can't say that I blame them as it truly is beautiful there and I went to sleep last night wishing that I could finally win that elusive lottery so that I could move there myself for at least three out of the four seasons - I'm not sure if I'm hale and hearty enough to handle the winters but I can only imagine how gorgeous it is up there with the snow covering the mountains!

In 1876, the same team who built the Saco River Covered Bridge - Charles Austin Broughton and his son Frank - built a covered bridge over the Ellis River in Jackson. The bridge was named the Honeymoon Bridge based on the tradition of young couples using the shaded passages to steal a kiss and the local custom has carried on with many newly married couples having their picture taken at the bridge. The day I was there I didn't see anyone stealing any kisses but I sure did see a lot of people taking pictures but who can blame them? It's a gorgeous bridge and very well-maintained by the town!

As with the Saco River Covered Bridge, the Broughtons used the Paddleford truss design and created a bridge that is is 121'-1" long with a single span of 103'-0". It has an overall width of 26'-5" with a roadway width of 16-'0" making it most definitely a single lane only. The covered sidewalk on the side of the bridge was added by the town in 1930.

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The Honeymoon Bridge is #51 of New Hampshire's historic covered bridges and it's so pretty I'm just going to have to share some pictures with you!

As mentioned, the bridge spans the Ellis River which is a 16.7 mile tributary of the Saco River. In Pinkham Notch the river flows over Glen Ellis Falls which is supposed to be quite lovely in addition to being easy to access off of Route 16 but unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to go see the falls as it was starting to get late in the day and there were other areas in Jackson that I wanted to get to before I lost all light. I'll just have to get to them another day! In the meantime, here are a few pictures of the Ellis River in the area of the covered bridge.

This guy was fishing but you can't really see his fishing pole.

On just the other side of the Honeymoon Bridge is a place that looked interesting but had unfortunately closed before I had the chance to get to:

Apparently Flossie's General Store and Emporium (I just love that word 'emporium'!) has been a part of Jackson since the mid-1950's and it's about as quaint as one can get! I wish I'd had the chance to explore the interior a little bit but alas, not this trip. Next time definitely!

Jackson was having its 23rd annual Return of the Pumpkin People contest while we were there and even though I didn't have the opportunity to see all of the entries, I did catch the one in front of Flossie's which tied for First in the Most Creative category:

with the Debony Salon pink pumpkin flamingos that were across the street:

If you're wondering HOW to make a pink pumpkin flamingo of your own, this close-up shot of one should give you the general idea of what you need and how to put one together. Very creative, don't you think?

Next post I'll take you over to Jackson Falls which is near the center of Jackson Village and powered by the Wildcat River which was designated as New Hampshire's first federally designated "Wild and Scenic River". Even though the river was most definitely scenic, due to the drier summer that New Hampshire had this year the river wasn't quite as wild as it could have been and considering I almost fell in, I'm thinking that's a good thing!

Venturing Out on Vacation, Part One: North to Jackson

Before I get to that lovely covered bridge that I hinted at in Thursday's post I guess I should back up a bit to the beginning of our recent trip to New Hampshire and Maine.  After all, I don't want to leave anything out though that means I'm going to be writing about the trip for a good number of posts! Good thing we were only gone five days, eh?

Anyhow, to back up to Tuesday, October 5th ... the day didn't exactly dawn bright and sunny but more like overcast and blah but that's okay, a vacation is a vacation and I don't mind overcast; pouring rain is a completely different story but at least I don't get to that until later on in the trip!  Jamie and I packed up the car, patted Tesla good-bye on the head and told him to behave for Andrew, then drove up to Canterbury to pick up my mother. By 9:45 we were on the road heading north and the traffic wasn't bad at all even through Lowell, Massachusetts which can be a real bugger - right, Lois?

Our route of travel took us right through Portsmouth, New Hampshire where I had the extreme pleasure of living for about two years way back in the early 1970's when my Dad was stationed at Pease Air Force Base. It was Dad's last duty station before he retired in 1974 and probably my very favorite next to Cannon Air Force Base in Clovis, New Mexico. Unfortunately, Pease was one of the very first bases closed during the Clinton Administration's military downsizing but whenever I'm up in that area, I have lots and lots of memories of my first two years of high school and the good times I had while living there.

Fortunately, one of our favorite restaurants is still there so we made sure to stop at Newick's Lobster House in Dover on the Great Bay for lunch. Newick's has two locations in New Hampshire and one in Maine, too, but the restaurant in Dover was the original location to open in 1948. The current building is not the original one as that one was destroyed in a fire; that building was a lot smaller than the current one which is huge by anyone's standards. It needs to be huge, though, as lots and lots of people go to Newick's as the food is fantastic, the prices are quite reasonable, and I've never met a member of the wait-staff who wasn't friendly and helpful.

For some reason, I didn't bring my camera into the restaurant with us (probably to save my mother from having to roll her eyes!) so I don't have any pictures of the inside or of our delicious lunches - next trip up, maybe?  My cousin and I usually try to go to New Hampshire for some tax-free Christmas shopping and Newick's is always on the agenda so it's not like I'll never get there again!  At any rate, I had my usual as I'm a creature of habit and I just love, love, love their swordfish nuggets which I've never seen anywhere else and are to die for.  Basically the nuggets are chunks of delicious swordfish steak that are lightly battered and deep-fried just like the baby shrimp that I always pair them up with; served with a side of french fries and coleslaw it just doesn't get much better than that unless you want to add on a bowl of Newick's delicious clam chowder! Dang ... I'm definitely going to have to talk to Amy about a trip up soon!

After lunch I took a few moments to take a few pictures of the Great Bay of which you get a gorgeous view from Newick's dining room:

After that it was back in the car to continue our drive north up New Hampshire Route 16 towards our destination for the night about 80 miles away:  Jackson, New Hampshire.  The skies had cleared up rather nicely once we got north of Dover and there was some pretty foliage though the color was nowhere near peak.  As we passed through Conway Village I just happened to look over and caught sight of a covered bridge which prompted me to quickly pull down a side road, do a U-turn, and stop.  Neither Jamie nor my mother seemed overly surprised!

This is the Saco River Bridge even though it spans the Swift River - I think!  It's a bit confusing as depending on what literature you're reading, some say that the bridge carries East Side Road (old Route 16) over the Swift River and others say that it's over the Saco River.  Huh?  Maybe it's because the Swift River is a tributary of the Saco River?  Well, either way, there's no doubt that the bridge is called the Saco River Bridge!

The Saco River Bridge is #48 of New Hampshire's fifty-four historic covered bridges. The current bridge was built in 1890 by Charles Broughton and his son Frank and is the third covered bridge to stand at this site. In the 1850s, Jacob Berry and Peter Paddleford built a covered bridge that replaced a crudely framed log bridge that had collapsed.  That bridge stood until the Swift River Covered Bridge crashed into it in 1869 at which time the Saco River Covered Bridge was rebuilt but it was destroyed again by a tannery fire in 1890. It was at that time that the Broughtons once again rebuilt the bridge at a cost of $4,000.

As for the technical details, the covered portion of the bridge is 224'-9" long - made up of two spans that are 103-'4" and 95'-4". The overall width is 30'-4" with a roadway width of 18'-3".  The style of the bridge is a Paddleford truss with added arches, a style that is only found in New England and which was originated by Peter Paddleford of Littleton, New Hampshire in 1846.  The design was actually a redesign of the Long truss which was designed and patented by Colonel Stephen Long in 1830.  Paddleford was never able to get a patent on his design because of court challenges by the holders of the patent for the Long truss as the designs were very similar but Paddleford's design was widely used throughout New Hampshire as well as on a couple of bridges in Vermont.

As you can see, the truss design looks very sturdy and considering the bridge has been standing strong since 1890, I'd have to say that Mr. Paddleford knew exactly what he was doing!

The shot above was a little tricky to get as there's quite a bit of traffic that crosses over the bridge but I managed to catch a short lull in that traffic to plant myself front and center and shoot quickly!

The view from the bridge was quite lovely with the White Mountains to the east and a bit of fall foliage to add some color to the scene.  If you walk down a short path near the parking area, there's a small beach on the banks of the river almost under the bridge which looked like the perfect spot to go cool off on a hot summer day - though it definitely wasn't that kind of day while we were there!

Even though it was going to put us going back the way we came, I just had to drive over the bridge before we started back towards Jackson!  There's just something about the sound of one's tires as you drive over the planks that you can't find anywhere else!

Continuing north we drove through Conway and arrived at the scenic area in Intervale where this view awaited us:

There's a visitor's center located here so we stopped so that I could take some pictures and we could grab some brochures and maps.  Jamie took some time to enjoy the view, too!

While we were at the Intervale Scenic Area, there was one gentleman there with an easel and canvas who was painting the beautiful scenery in front of us and with a view like this, who could blame him?

Leaving the beautiful vista behind us, we continued the short 6-mile drive north to Jackson and the location of our first night's lodging - the beautiful Christmas Farm Inn and Spa:

However, you're just going to have to wait a little longer for that story as it takes time to edit all these pictures!

Five on Friday - The Ladies 'A' List

One of the best ways to come up with a set list for Travis' musical Five on Friday meme is to get a song stuck in your head for one reason or another - something that I do on a fairly regular basis - and then build from there.  This week I managed to get a little bit of Elvis Costello stuck in the grey matter along with a smattering of Boston and the next thing I knew I had a set list of five songs with women's names that begin with the letter 'A'. See there's some sort of logic involved in all this ... sort of!

Just a Teaser

As so often seems to be the case, one goes on vacation only to come home to a laundry list of things that has grown a lot longer since one went on vacation - at least that's been the case for me this week hence the reason no one has gotten to see any of those 1,400+ pictures from my recent trip to New Hampshire and Maine yet.  I could bore you with all of the details of what I've been doing since I got home late Sunday night but that doesn't sound like a lot of fun so instead I'm going to post one of the pictures that I have actually managed to do something with since returning - kind of a sneak peek sort of thing!

This is part of the Swift River as it runs through Conway Village in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  The Swift River is one of the major tributaries of the Saco, a 120-mile river which originates at Saco Lake in Crawford Notch and flows on to the Atlantic Ocean in Maine. I stopped to take pictures in this particular spot as there's a very nice covered bridge just out of view that if you promise to come back another day, I promise to show to you!  Honest!

Home Again, Home Again

Six days, five nights, 1,335 miles, and 1,405 pictures later I'm home from my adventures in New Hampshire and Maine with only one contusion on my right knee and a lot of nice memories.

For today, though, it's off to work for 16 hours and - truth be told - I'm kind of looking forward to it!  One of these days I'm going to learn how to take a vacation where I actually relax!

Back soon - hopefully with at least a few pictures to show off!

My Daughter, The More-or-Less Normal One!

I took this picture of Jamie when we were up in Salem in front of yet another of their haunted houses that I sort-of remembered from the ghost tour that I went on in 2008.  I'll have to see if I can do some research when I get home and let you know exactly what made this house haunted; I should have been taking notes the night of the tour I guess! 

Five on Friday - The Shoot to Thrill Version

Today should have us heading down from the northwest corner of Maine towards the coast in the area of Penobscot Bay but I couldn't miss Travis' Five on Friday meme and the chance to share some more favorite music which - in today's case - is actually some of Jamie's favorite music.

The kid has been an AC/DC fan for quite a few years now and even though I've never spent a lot of time listening to them, when I do put on some of their stuff I find that their music rather grows on me - especially if you pair it up with Robert Downey, Jr. in an Iron Man movie! Some things just need honest-to-goodness rock to really make them roll!

Hope everyone is having a fantastic Friday and perhaps have some nice plans for the upcoming holiday weekend. If you get the chance be sure to pop on over to Trav's Thoughts, say HI!, and tell him I sent you!

My Daughter, The Zombie

For those of you who have seen pictures of Amanda in full zombie make-up in the past, this creepified picture probably doesn't look much different than she normally does when she's once again joined the ranks of the shambling undead.  After all, when you're the zombie on Wikipedia, you have a reputation to uphold! 

I hope she will be suitably pleased on my adjustments! 

The Old Norwich Burying Grounds

One of my favorite old cemetery pictures becomes even creepier when retouched a little bit with a Halloween texture!  This was taken at the Old Norwich Burying Grounds which was established on January 4th, 1700 and which you can read more about if you so chose at this post that I wrote back in October of 2008.  There's even a photo montage with some nice music.  Bear in mind, I didn't have my fancy-dancy Nikon back then but the pictures give you a pretty good idea of the place and what it looks like.  After dark it looks something like this if you're so inclined to go there at night and try to take some pictures like I've done in the past:

I don't think I've been back there after dark since I took that one now that I think about it ... perhaps I'll have to scare up the time to go back again on of these nights!