Road Trip round New England in the Spring, not the Fall! Day 8 – North Conway to Stowe & sweets!

[anji]

Day 8 – North Conway to Stowe & lots of sweets!

Sadly, this was out last breakfast at Spruce Moose. We had this with a lovely family from Connecticut. They were staying in one of the cottages – parents, daughter and fiancé. We had a good chat, She was horrified when I told her about how we leave litter everywhere in the UK – as opposed to clearing up all the rubbish at the Reel Pizza cinema. Her face said it all. They showed us photos of bears in their back yard (yes, rub it in, go on!) and we talked about music and mutual dislike of Trump! In our whole trip we only encountered one fan of his.

We checked out and said our goodbyes to Leon and Nellie. They had been the perfect hosts, so friendly and their Lodge was the best. Our only regret was that we forgot to sign the visitor book! We headed north towards Mount Washington again as this was the way to Stowe, Vermont.

We stopped briefly at the Willey House again to look at the geese. We were the only car there. Another car pulled up and it was the Connecticut family. They saw us and stopped to ask if Will was in a rock band as he knew so much about music and his face lit up when he talked about it! He did used to be, a long time ago! We said our goodbyes again and off they went.

First stop of the day was in Bethlehem – yes, really! They obviously capitalised on their name and have a special Christmas franking for mail sent from there. It’s also the highest town in New Hampshire. We had a short walk about before heading on.

We saw some deer. Wildlife!

Next stop was Littleton. We liked this as Will used to live in Littleton village, just outside Winchester. This was on my list for Chutters – the shop with the longest sweet counter in the world!

We parked on the street and walked down to the Riverwalk. Very, very pretty with a long covered footbridge and big river. We stopped at a lovely café for coffee and cookies. My favourite oatmeal and raisin and chocolate chip for Will. The benefit of Nellie’s massive breakfasts was we didn’t need lunch! It was a great view over the river to a big building that must have been a factory at one time, but now offices, and an old water wheel. After coffee we walked over the bridge, round past the offices and back over the other bridge onto Main Street again.

Chutters beckoned and didn’t disappoint! The counter was huge – all 112 feet of it! The shop has been there since the late 19th century. Of course, we had to have 2 bags of pick and mix! I got a mix of chocolate covered things, chocolate and sour stuff. It worked out to be expensive!

Further along the street was a music shop, which also sold guitars. I loved the sign on the window.

Littleton is also famous for the Pollyanna books as the author, Eleanor H Porter, lived there. There’s a statue and they have an official Pollyanna Glad Day festival each year!

We pressed on and crossed over the border into Vermont. Bye NH, you were amazing! The landscape changed quite quickly and became fields instead of forests. Lots of agriculture and cows.

We checked into our hotel at Stowe – the Sun and Ski Resort. The room was lovely and looked out onto the river. We laughed as the bed was so high that my feet didn’t touch the ground. This was to have dire consequences that night!

A couple of miles away was the Von Trapp Lodge. This was where the Von Trapp family of Sound of Music fame settled eventually in America, because it reminded them of Austria. It’s now an expensive hotel. We parked up and went inside. We were told we were free to wander round most of the hotel and went downstairs to where most of the ‘museum’ (and gift shop!) was.

To be honest I was a bit disappointed by this as I expected more of their Austrian history with why and how they escaped to USA, like the film. It basically just said ‘when they left Austria and arrived in USA’. There were lots of interesting photos though and a family tree. Some of the family are still in residence.

We went back upstairs and had a look into the restaurant (servers in Austrian attire) and round the lovely grounds. Beautiful tulips and view across the hills. I could see why they’d settled there.

We went back in so I could use the loo – yuk! For such a place the loos were the worst of the whole trip – only one of the 4 was clean enough for my behind to sit on it!

We drove from here into Stowe. This was a mass of roadworks and held up traffic. We didn’t stop and went back to the hotel for a swim instead.

The pool was lovely. Indoors and warm once you were in. We also had it to ourselves, which was nice. The hotel also had a mini golf course, which was busy when we arrived, and a bowling alley called the Stowe Bowl. After getting dressed in our room we decided on bowling because of the weather. I was well beaten fair and square! Lots of fun.

We drove down the road a bit to a Mexican restaurant we’d spotted earlier – The Tres Amigos. This place also housed the Rusty Nail stage with live music but nothing was on that night. I had a chilli and Will had beef burrito. Very good.

We drove back to our room and watched TV. I decided to scoff my sweets, lots of them. Time for bed and I wriggled myself off the giant bed and onto the ground. I turned round and just yelped. There on the white cover was the most horrendous, foot-long brown skid mark! Unbeknown to me I’d dropped one of the pieces of chocolate onto the bed and somehow sat on it! It had then melted and been scraped all over the cover when I tried to get off the bed. I was mortified! Will actually thought for a minute that it was poo, not chocolate. Thanks for that! I tried to wash the chocolate out of my trousers, which were new for the holiday, but not much luck. (5 washes later they were wearable again – what was in that chocolate?!?!)

It’s hilarious now and I wish we’d taken a photo. At the time it was truly awful. I daren’t try to get it off the bed cover as it would have made it worse, so I slept under a chocolate duvet! I was very glad that we were checking out in the morning …

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[Loopylooloo]

Oops about your chocolate incident!
I love the look of all these places so much your trip report is inspiring me! Chutters looks fabulous.

[Melbatb]

Whoops about the chocolate but what a lovely day again!

[Libby]

Oh, my goodness, for a moment I thought they'd given you dirty sheets!

[WileyCoyote]

🙈 chocolategate. Nightmare !
But what a fab day, this scenery is just so stunning and love the quaintness of these places.
Sounds a really interesting day and a lovely evening.
Did lol at the high bed too .