The Beauty Around Us

Our Thanksgiving Holiday – The Last 3 Days

By Linda G. on December 1, 2021

We spent Thanksgiving Day and two days afterward in New Hampshire. The activities of our first three days of our Thanksgiving holiday are provided here.

On Saturday (November 27th) the only plans we had for the day were to meet up with a blogging friend and her husband, to go shopping at the Merrimack Premium Outlets and to pack in preparation for our drive back home the next day.

We met Dorothy and Patrick at the 99 Restaurant, located on our hotel grounds, at 11:30 am.  Dorothy and I are blogging friends.  We have been blogging friends for at least 8 years.  This was the first time we met in person.  Dorothy’s blog is called “The Frog and PenguINN”.   Our visit lasted about 2 hours. Our lunch choices were delicious.  Conversation flowed naturally and pretty much non stop.  I am happy that we met and hope that the opportunity presents itself to meet again.

After lunch we went our separate ways.  Bob and I went to the Merrimack Premium Outlets. 

Merrimack Premium Outlets was hopping; people everywhere!  Most people carried at least one bag; many people carried several bags. It was a good shopping day for the outlet stores! We found what we were looking for, and we got some exercise.  We have been doing way too much sitting since Wednesday morning.

[NOTE: When we returned home, we discovered that Bob’s purchases at Merrimack Premium Outlets turned out not to be what Bob thought he purchased.  The PJ set was a woman’s PJ set, not a man’s set.  The PJ set is too big for me. We offered the PJ set to someone in our local Facebook Helping Hands group, who is gathering Christmas items for those in need.  The two Under Armour shirts are short sleeves, not long sleeves.  Bob will keep the shirts. I helped Bob with both of these selections. I guess, after 20 months of avoiding shopping in stores, we are not good at in-store shopping any more!]

We returned to the hotel around 3:15 pm, where we stayed for rest of the afternoon / evening.

On Sunday we started our drive back home.  We checked out of the hotel.  Then, we ate a filling breakfast at a Denny’s Restaurant near our hotel. 

This breakfast was the best since arriving in NH. 

Shortly after 8:00 am we were on our way back home.  When we left Nashua, the sky was partly sunny. It wasn’t long, though, until the sky became overcast. On our way to NH we didn’t see any snow.  On our way home, we saw snow on the ground in NH (not far from Nashua); Wilmington, Woodford and Bennington VT; Hoosick NY to Albany NY (very little in Albany; snow flurries falling there but short lived). There was much more traffic on our way home than there was on way to NH!

As we did on our way to New Hampshire, we made a stop at the Hogback Mountain Overlook.

Here are a few snowy scenes, while driving on the Molly Stark Trail (Route 9).

and my favorite …

The snow returned in Duanesburg NY, where we turned onto I-88. Snow stayed with us from Duanesburg to Owego.  Thankfully the roads were clear of snow for the most part.

We arrived at Best Western Oswego Inn around 2:40 pm and checked into room 108.  This hotel used to be a Holiday Inn Express.  I don’t know when it changed hands.  Our hotel room is spacious.  Its furnishings include two double beds, a chest of drawers with a tv sitting on top of it, desk and chair, two end tables and a kitchenette complete with refrigerator, microwave, two burner stove, Keurig Coffee Maker, a sink and cupboard/drawer storage.  We paid for this room by using reward points.

On Monday we checked out of our hotel and ate breakfast at a nearby Dunkin’ Donuts. We were on our way home by 7:45 am. At that time the sky was overcast; the temperature was 31 degrees; and the trees were lightly frosted.  There was a light dusting of snow on the ground.  The road surface was wet, not icy.

We encountered occasional snow showers most of the way home.  The ground was snow covered along I-86 in the Finger Lakes area (NY); tree branches were snow covered.  The most snow we saw was in Jamestown NY, where there was easily a foot of snow on the ground.  

Before returning home we stopped at Shults Auto in Jamestown to pick up spark plugs that Bob ordered online on Black Friday.  He saved 20% on his purchase. Now, he needs an ”Indian Summer” type of day to install the spark plugs.

We returned home at 11:30 am.  Much less snow was on the ground in Warren than in Jamestown.  There might have been 3 inches of snow on the ground at our house.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with family and friends. It is always good to be back home, though.