Paul & Mary's Daily Diary

 Day 1 – Day 2 – Day 3 – Day 4 – Day 5 – Day 6 – Day 7 – Day 8 – Day 9 

We thought we should let Colleen rest and not have to entertain us this morning, so we stayed around the Inn. We had coffee early, followed by breakfast. We just relaxed until around 1:30 p.m., when we invited Colleen for lunch at the Inn. The weather cooperated beautifully.

No perspiration for the week!

The breakfast table had some new decor.  The Sander’s Sisters Blackbird was visiting this morning.  A blackbird’s life expectancy is around three years, but they have been known to live into double figures.

Alfred Hitchcock, eat your heart out.

The sisters are funny!  We watch the movie every Halloween season.

It was a great film, and the second production was as good as the first!

The skull consists of 22 bones joined together by cranial sutures.  The cranial region houses the brain, and the facial region includes the rest of the skull.  Enjoying an omelet when a skull was staring at you was difficult!

Hard Head!

We were all set to escape the clutches of the Inn at 11:00 am and embark on a thrilling adventure to the local museum. Brace yourself, museum; we’re coming to admire your finest dusty artifacts!  We hopped in the car and zoomed over to the museum just a stone’s throw away.

New decorations showed up this morning!

The Woodman Museum was founded in 1916 from a trust established by Annie E. Woodman to: “Advance and develop a passion for History, Nature, and the Arts.  To educate, excite, and inspire current and future generations about . . . a changing nation by preserving and exhibiting objects of historical significance, decorative and fine art, and natural science that connect Dover and its citizens to . . . the world.”

It is located at 182 Central Ave.  Dover, NH, which was less than two miles away!

We arrived at 11:30 am.

The signage out front revealed four buildings to visit, but we also had limited time. We joined a tour group to get as much information as possible quickly.

Did you hear about the robbery at the local museum?  The thieves only took the Monet and ran!

Museum, here we come.

We visited the first building and read about the linen made in New Hampshire. Linen was essential in the 1600s since no cotton was available in New England!

When people arrived in the New World, they needed food, water, and clothes. Linen has been around for eons. It is one of the world’s oldest textiles, originating around 10,000 years ago in Ancient Mesopotamia.

Linen is the second strongest natural fiber in the world.  It is a solid fabric and gets 10% stronger when wet.  It’s also 30% stronger than cotton!  Linen is very durable; unlike other fabrics, it doesn’t pill over time.  The more worn and washed it is, the softer and more luxurious it becomes.

To protect themselves from the Indians, settlers built fortified houses called garrisons!

The garrison below was moved three miles by hand and horse in 1910 and has been protected from the elements by an overhanging building for the past 120 years.

The community fort house.

Inside, it was generally used by one family, but when Indians attacked, the local people would go to the garrison, protected by a foot of white pine.  The garrison kept food and water available and housed as many as twenty families during an uprising.

Inside was spartan but functional.

In the adjacent building, there were collections of items from pre-war of Independence through the 1860s.  The docent had great stories to share.

The museum is well documented.

The early settlers (the mid-1800s) had music, including a Swiss music box that played 40 different tunes.

Excellent craftsmanship; it still works after 150 years!

At 1:15 pm, we departed the museum even though we were not done.  We had to meet Colleen at the Inn for a late lunch.  We were on time and had a super “afternoon tea,” complete with cucumber sandwiches, scones, and other delectable goodies.

We had brunch at the Inn.

From lunch, Colleen drove us home to pick up Mark, and we all went to Jacquie’s home, which we had not seen yet.  We visited the kids and had a ball watching them be kids.  We saw the drumset that we sent to Chunk (Ashton).

Four generations of family!  It looks like Emmerson is having a ball.

Four generations at Lacquie’s home.  Mary, Emmerson, Jacquie, and Colleen.

We brought the kids some homemade cupcakes from GAle at the Inn. Not only were they good to eat, but they also looked good!

“How do I look in my new cupcake?”

After a while, we departed Jacquie’s home and headed back to Doven to Colleen’s house, where Jon and Sarah would bring dinner from the local Thai restaurant.

In Thai culture, sharing is a vital part of dining, and eating alone is considered bad luck. At meals, everyone shares from a large bowl of dishes in the center of the table, and taking small portions from each dish is considered polite.  We followed their tradition.

Jon and Sarah brought their kids, Nova, Kia, and King. The doggies were a three-ring circus, providing great entertainment.

The babies have a new best friend.

It’s time for tricks. Sarah showed us how the babies can have food put on their noses and on commend, flip to food in the air, and chow down.

The doggies were a three-ring circus!

We all know that these babies talk, so we attempted to make them tell us their secrets. It turns out that their first words were, ‘Goo, gaa gaa… give me a bottle!’ Well, we voted and decided that we humans make better husky sounds than they do!

We moseyed on back to the inn and plopped in front of the good ol’ TV until 10:00 p.m.

220 Miles To Go!

 Day 1 – Day 2 – Day 3 – Day 4 – Day 5 – Day 6 – Day 7 – Day 8 – Day 9 

So, Mary was off to school at 7:00 am and I was left to pack our goodies, have breakfast, checkout, and wait for her nibs to be dismissed.  Looks like I’m the designated pack mule and breakfast chef today!

Most everything fits into Mary’s five steamer trunks.  I put my one pair of jeans into the Ralph’s Market paper sack ( I folded it carefully) and went to have breakfast.  Mary allowed me $1.50 for breakfast, so I had a toothpick and a glass of water—known in these parts as a “pine float”!

After arranging for Beakins Moving and Storage to get the steamer trunks and the twelve matching suitcases, we waited outside the one-room schoolhouse for Mary to reappear.

I brought her an apple to give the teacher!

Zot, we were off at approximately 1:00 pm.   The moving van was right behind us!  Our GPS was set to go, revealing we had four hours to get to Dover.  I thought I had put the GPS to the B&B, but it was set to Colleen’s home.

Mary snapped a picture of the foliage around Ba Haba, which is always green and beautiful until winter.

Saying goodbye to Ba Haba.

The signage and roads were in excellent condition, and we made good time until the accident at milepost 113 on Highway 95.  We came to a dead stop.  The GPS asked, “Would you like to save 53 minutes to your destination?”

With a resounding yes, we were off for a twenty-minute countryside tour.  We drove through barns, inched through open fields, scared a mess of chickens, and also side-swiped a cow.  Finally, we arrived at milepost 120 and were off and running again!  Later that day, I plucked the car, removing the chicken feathers accumulated during our off-road experience.

We are about three weeks early for the color spectacular, but we get a taste of fall occasionally!

The leaves are beginning to turn.

Commanding the Starship requires a lot of energy as we navigate between the various freeways and byways. My trusty navigator, General Nuisance, kept me on the straight and narrow, with only mild screaming outbursts as I changed lanes.

Captain at the helm!

Mother Nature, that pesky person, started calling us, and we knew we would not make it to Colleen’s, so we stopped at a roadside rest area and did our thing.  Dunkin’ Donuts was there, and we had a Latte to go.

After three hours of driving, we stopped to heed the calls of Mother Nature and get a coffee.

Another hour later, we landed at Colleen’s home in Dover.  We jumped into Colleen and Mark’s truck for a quick trip to The Hold Grail restaurant to meet with the rest of the family.

The Holy Grail has been voted the Best Irish Pub in NH for the past 11 years!  The old St. Joseph’s Church was built by William J. O’Connor in 1895-1896 and established as a Parish in 1898.  In simpler times, this new structure served the residents as a gathering place to worship, meet people, listen to music, and socialize with friends and family.

Today, over 100 years later, Maureen Kennedy has turned the same basic structure into one of the Seacoast’s premier restaurants.  The Holy Grail Food & Spirits strives to be a pub in the truest sense of the word.  They have combined present-day ideas with the family values of our Irish heritage.  The “Cottage Room” resembles the home of Maureen’s grandparents in Rosmuc, Derryrush, Connemara, located down the road from James Joyce, the famous Irish author and poet.

The “Choir Loft” provides the setting for an intimate dining experience.  It overlooks the main bar and Irish village mural on the altar wall.  The loft also features exceptional views of the building’s original stained glass windows.  Pew-like booths line the walls.  Authentic Irish/English cuisine enhances our guests’ overall dining experience.

Dinner at the Holy Grail!

We joined the family, who had been chowing down on appetizers since we were late due to Highway 95 traffic and accidents.  We had a wonderful meal and stuffed our faces like there was no tomorrow!

Our three East Coast grandkids and three great-grandkids joined the fun, but Chunk, the youngest, had to stay home with Daddy!  The management had to warn us twice about being too rowdy. I guess we need to work on our indoor voices and save the party tricks for after-hours!

The gang is all here.

We moved seats as the evening progressed, so everyone got a chance to visit everyone!  Although “relatively new” to the family, Mary fit right in and was welcomed by all.

Mary enjoyed her Irish Stew in a breadbasket.

The “greats” were a hoot, and I got to play schoolhouse with the girls.  They made up games as they went, and I had no idea what I was doing, but they laughed, so that was good.

We also got to visit Cassie’s in-laws, who came along.  Elan was a Marine, and Mary was in the Army, so they had beautiful stories to tell!  Vanessa and I shared stories about growing up.

The kids are all good friends and get along wonderfully!  Calan and Sarah are joined at the hip!!

On the way in, there was one statue in the hallway, but on the way out, there were two.  Then, it became clear that Jon (our oldest grandson) was teasing his nephews and nieces.

It wasn’t easy to figure out who was the most pious!

Jon the Pious meets the Monk!

We had a gaggle for dinner this evening and enjoyed catching up on everything.  We will see everyone again during the week and visit our grandkids homes.  They all live within 20 minutes of each other.

Heading home, Sarah leads the parade.

Calan will be like Jon, which is a good thing!

Oh my, no, there are three of them!!

Calan joins the visit.

Colleen drove us back to her house, where we picked up our car and finished the 1.7 miles to our B&B.  We are staying in the same place as last year.

The Silver Fountain Inn in Dover is 150 years old. The hotel proudly serves Dover, Durham, Portsmouth, Hampton, Somersworth, New Hampshire, Kittery, York, and Ogunquit, Maine.

We stayed there last year; this time, our room was on the first floor.

We turned back the clock 100 years when we opened the doors.

We made it to the hotel!