We woke up to a slight drizzle at the Twin Mountain, New Hampshire KOA, which was sad, since we were going to go to the top of Mt. Washington, but if summit was in the clouds, it wouldn’t be worth it.
We decided to go to downtown Twin Mountain and get breakfast. There’s a problem with this since there isn’t a downtown in Twin Mountain, but rather a sparsely populated business corridor, where we ended up finding probably one of the only restaurants in town. It was almost full, since we got the last table that was open.
Their menu pricing was great; I could get my favorite, Eggs Benedict, again for only $6.50. While eating breakfast we noticed that the couple parked next to us in the KOA were also here for breakfast. They had been here a day or two earlier, and had come from where we’d be heading, Bar Harbor; we pumped them for information, which they freely gave.
The famous cog train up the mountain takes three hours, one hour up, one hour at the top and one hour down. It costs $62/person and only goes about 2-3 mph. For a while it sounded interesting, but after talking to the couple, we deemed it wasn’t worth the price, plus it was boring. For $6 one can drive the road up the mountain, but because of the rain we decided that wasn’t to be.
But they did highly recommend Franconia Notch State Park with its famed flume. They also filled us in on what we should see and do in Bar Harbor.
After a leisurely breakfast we headed back to the KOA, but Marianne spotted an old fashioned general store. This store also had groceries, and a gas station out front which even sold diesel. As I was filling the truck with diesel, Marianne disappeared inside. For the next ½ hour we perused all the aisles, rooms and even the second level of this remarkable store. They had a little of everything, but best of all we found a wall-mounted mechanical can opener just like the one we have in our trailer to give to my sister and brother-in-law, who have the exact same model trailer as we do.
After that serious shopping we prepared to head to “The Flume”, with the dogs.It’s a ½ mile hike from the visitor’s center to the beginning of the trail for “The Flume” then another ½ mile or so up the trail to actually see it, which is a narrow slot canyon through which cascading water plummets more than 50 feet. We left the dogs in the truck with windows partially down. The temperature was cool due the overcast sky and rain drizzle. Since we didn’t want to spend the extra time (and energy) walking from the visitor’s center to the trailhead, we rode their shuttle bus instead, shortening our hike by 50%.
This place was as truly beautiful as our campground neighbors had claimed. And because of the weather, we only saw about a dozen other people hiking the trail. The subdued lighting gave both of us a great opportunity to play dueling cameras. It was intense, as we jockeyed for camera angles in a vain attempt to try to outdo each other to capture the perfect photo of this great place. We photographed the water, the trees, their roots, the rocks and flowers, from close-ups to panoramas.
And when we rush back to the trailer, we load our photos into our respective computers, edit them in Google’s Picasa (a great program), and then call to the other to have them see our latest slide show masterpiece. Too funny.
After Franconia we headed for the Mt. Washington Hotel. This place makes me feel like I’ve met the Hotel Del Coronado’s east coast sister. But instead of overlooking the Pacific Ocean, this hotel sits in the shadows of Mt. Washington.
The Mount Washington Hotel area is better known as Bretton Woods, and includes the nearby Bretton Woods ski resort. The hotel was constructed for $1.7 million by Joseph Stickney, a native of Waltham, Massachusetts, who had made a fortune before the age of 30 as a Pennsylvania-based coal broker. When construction started in 1900 on the Y-shaped building, he brought in 250 Italian artisans to build it, particularly the granite and stucco masonry. The hotel opened July 28, 1902. At the opening ceremony, Stickney told the audience: "Look at me, gentlemen ... for I am the poor fool who built all this!" Within a year he was dead at the age of 64.
The hotel was a success, but with the advent of income tax, Prohibition and the Great Depression, the hospitality business was rapidly declining. In 1936, upon the death of his widow, Foster Reynolds, Mrs. Stickney's nephew, inherited the hotel, which then closed in 1942 because of World War II. In 1944, a Boston syndicate bought the extensive property for about $450,000. At the hotel that year, the Bretton Woods monetary conference took place, a conference that created the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, a system of rules, institutions, and procedures to regulate the international monetary system, all of which today is part of the World Bank Group.
After a day of sightseeing we spent the next couple of hours washing and drying our clothes. A necessary evil.
We wrapped up a full day by relaxing the rest of the evening in the trailer, once again blogging and uploading photos.
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