Sorry to keep you waiting. Busy, busy I am.
Let’s see, we left off after night number one in Wolfeboro. The next morning we got up and had a lovely breakfast at the B&B and went into town for a bit. Mostly just a walk around to see what was there. We ended up down by the docks looking out into the lake.
There was a mail delivery boat there. I don’t know what I was thinking not taking a picture of it.
After that we checked out the lake across the way from the B&B that I posted about last time.
Then we were on our way north. Into the White Mountains, through Conway and North Conway and stopping at a few antique/junk shops along the way. We were slightly amused by this sign and it took us passing a few before I got a decent shot.
It was a little drizzly and the mist was weaving its way through the mountains.
At the bottom, they give you some information and a cd to pop into your car and listen to on the way up and down. It gives little facts and tells the story of how the auto road came to be. They also advise you to drive the whole thing, up and down in the lowest gear to prevent your car from overheating on the way up and to save your brakes on the way down.
At various points along the way they have pull-offs to stop and enjoy the view as well as let your car take a break. Many of them also have little springs where the water is collected in these blue barrels with a sign to use the water for your radiator. That’s how serious this climb was.
Once we got above the tree line the temperature was noticeably cooler and the wind was much stronger. There we a few gust that nearly blew me down. Then further up, the fog/mist began to thicken and soon we could barely see at all.
You have to pay to drive up the auto road and part way up, Matt was wondering if it was worth it. Especially when we got to a portion that wasn’t paved and it didn’t seem like two cars could fit. Combine that with the very low visibility and Matt was not having fun driving. I’ve decided that it was not nearly as scary as the back way between Emlenton and Rockland, but I wasn’t driving.
The road soon became paved again, though the weather hadn’t improved. When Matt spotted some taillights in a pull off he stopped for a while to see if it would clear up at all. By this point it was raining. We had a small lunch while sitting there and Matt debated going on.
We decided to keep going and pulled out and turned up the hill only to go a few yards and find ourselves in a parking lot for the summit. We had been in short walking distance the whole time we were sitting in the car.
We got out and went up to the old weather observatory building, which they have chained to the ground. And rightly so, as they’ve had the world’s worst wind there with gusts to 231 mph. We also walked up to the building with the museum and wondered around. Since the weather was so foggy, we bought a few post cards of the views that we would have seen. Mt. Washington even has it’s own post office and you can mail right from the top.
On the way back to Wolfeboro we stopped at Glen Ellis Falls and took a short hike and got some pictures.
We got back into Wolfeboro and headed down the the local raw bar, Wolftrap. And that’s were we had dinner. We tried some raw oysters, loved them and ordered more, then had some fried calamari, and tried a couple raw clams, which I did not like but Matt did. We stayed another night at the 1810 House (and got special blueberry pancakes the next morning). We ended up being even more glad we chose that instead of camping because we had quite a bit of rain that night.
Next up: On to Maine!
Beautiful, beautiful pictures! One time when I was a kid, we started at the base of Mt. Washington with clear and sunny weather – when we got to the top it was snowing and the wind was howling! It was incredible!! It's definitely worth the trip 🙂
Can't wait for the Maine pictures!!
PS – I love oysters too!
We made the trip up there one time in the Fall and it was 70 degrees at the bottom and when we got to the top it was below freezing and snow covered with icicles all over the buildings. Once was enough for us!! Glad you had fun. ~Lili