WAITING FOR ANTHROCYANINS AND CAROTENOIDS…

the beginning of
the leaf peeper season

Don’t let the title scare you… those are just the pigments that decorate the autumn foliage… and since New England is the fall foliage capital of the world… what better place to hang and watch the colors change than the White Mountains in New Hampshire?

We check into the Country Bumpkins Campground along the Pemigewasset River. This is a small, family run park with cabins, camping and a few full hook-up RV sites.  Folks come here year after year and it’s sometimes tough to get a space.  Luckily, they are in the process of adding a few more full hook-up sites and one is ready the day we check in.  The only caveats: no WIFI in this area (but we can get service by the office) and they are working on spot next to us (which is no problem as we are usually gone during the day.) The entire park is decorated for fall with cute scarecrows, corn stalks and pumpkins and some of the leaves on the trees are starting to turn.

If there's a historical marker…
It must be true!

This is a great base camp to explore the region. We are just down the road from Franconia Notch State Park with its miles of hiking trails, nearby national forests for more hiking and leaf peeping.   Plus an added bonus… this is the stretch of Highway 3 where on September 19, 1961, Barney and Betty Hill met up with some extraterrestrials – the first widely publicized case of UFO abductions.  A State Historic Marker commemorates where the event occurred along Highway 3.

Fadden's
Sugar House Museum

We head into the nearby town of North Woodstock to visit Fadden’s General Store and Maple Sugar House.  This classic New Hampshire country store has a small sugar house museum and also sells the Fadden family’s award winning maple syrup (six Carlisle Trophies for the best maple syrup in New Hampshire and a Governors Cup for the best in North America.) We pick up a couple of pints of syrup and a jar of maple cream.  Maple cream is a decadent concoction where syrup is cooked and then whipped into a smooth spread and it’s outrageously delicious… think: thick, creamy, concentrated maple syrup!

open fermentation tanks

Down the street from Fadden’s is the Woodstock Inn Stationand Brewery.  We see a sign offering tours so we pay our $5 tour fee and sign up.  The fee covers a commemorative pint glass and a six flight tasting and, of course, the tour.  We are the only ones to show up today so we get a private tour.  We start in the Brew Pub where we learn the history of the brewery and then head to the other end of the Inn to the brewery.  They do things a little differently here, using open fermentation vessels.  During the tour we actually get to climb a ladder and look into the vessels.

After the tour we head back to the Pub for some serious tasting and end up staying for lunch.  The Brews are good.  Their Autumn Brew with an apple and cinnamon flavor is especially nice with a shot of Fireball Whiskey.  The Lobster Egg Rolls are divine! Sweet chunks of fresh tender lobster rolled with a creamy filling… my mouth waters just thinking about them! We also get an order of their Spicy Mac and Cheese with sliced London broil and an order of their fish and chips.  The food is all pretty outstanding but the Lobster Egg Rolls are exceptional!  Since we are sitting at the bar, service is excellent!  Oh yeah the Lobster Egg Rolls are marvelous! 

Flume Gorge

The Flume Gorge is one of the most frequently visited scenic attractions in the White Mountains.  A flume is formed when natural forces, usually water, erode a softer rock that has filled a crack in harder rock.  This flume is in the Conway granite and is considered one of the finest examples of a flume gorge.  There is a $15 per person entrance fee, which seems exorbitant at first and well worth it after we actually enter the gorge.

Flume Covered Bridge

Before entering the gorge we pass by the Flume Covered Bridge, one of the oldest covered bridges in the state. There is a walkway bolted to the wall of the gorge and a series of bridges that take us back and forth over the rushing water.  We pass several waterfalls starting with Table Rock, an unnamed falls half way up and end at the Avalanche Falls.  

Bridge over Cascade Falls

We continue our two-mile loop and pass the Liberty Falls and cross a covered footbridge over the Pemigewasset River as it cascades into The Pool. The surrounding forest are filled with glacial erratics (huge boulders pushed by glaciers over 25,000 years ago.) Many of these erratics have huge trees growing on top of them with roots reaching around the boulders and into the ground. The estimated time to walk the two-mile loop is an hour and fifteen minutes… but we stretched that out to about three hours of gorge gawking. 

New Hampshire is famous for spectacular scenery, covered bridges, stellar fall foliage and TAX FREE SHOPPING!  So… when we wake up to pouring rain and a forecast for more of the same all day… it’s time to head to the nearest outlet center and do a little retail therapy. It is a very successful foraging day!

We want to extend our stay with the Country Bumpkins until the end of September, but the park is 100% booked over the next weekend when the New Hampshire Highland Games come to town… looks like it’s moving day…

k