The Beauty Around Us

We spent Thanksgiving Day and two days afterward in New Hampshire.

We drove from our home in Warren PA to Bennington VT on Wednesday. We left Warren at 7:20 am. It was a gorgeous, but frigid, morning.  The temperature was 18 degrees, when we left home.  

After making a few stops (for fuel, breakfast, stretching and bathroom), we arrived in Bennington VT shortly before 3:00 pm.  Our drive there was smooth sailing all the way.  The weather continued to be gorgeous; the traffic wasn’t bad; and the temperature got warmer.  When we arrived in Bennington, the temperature was 36 degrees. 

We checked into the Best Western Bennington, room 172.  Our hotel room was spacious, with access to an outside deck. 

The room looks nice on the surface.  If you look closely, though, you will notice a moderate amount of wear and tear.  The room was clean and appeared to have been recently painted.  The refrigerator was turned off, and wouldn’t turn on.  We assumed it was plugged in, but there wasn’t a way to check this as the refrigerator was bolted in place.  We didn’t have anything with us that had to be kept cold. We didn’t say anything about the refrigerator until the next day, when we checked out, only to alert the hotel to the fact that the refrigerator was not working.

At 4:00 pm we ate dinner at Bennington Pizza Plaza, located in a strip mall behind our hotel.  I had baked ziti with meat; Bob had stuffed shells. Both meals came with garlic toast.  Dinner was delicious.  Bennington Pizza Plaza, with its attractive table and chairs for dining in and tasteful seasonal decorative touches, was a notch up from a regular pizza joint.

On Thanksgiving Day we drove from Bennington VT to Bob’s sister and our brother-in-law’s house in Amherst NH. We got up at 6:15 am and went to breakfast about an hour later.  We enjoyed a hot breakfast, with all the selections (waffles, eggs, bacon or sausage, pastries, etc.) normally offered by Best Western hotels. We departed the hotel at 7:45 am, en route Cynthia and Larry’s house. Our route took us on the Molly Stark Trail (Route 9) through the Green Mountain National Forest. 

Leaving the Green Mountain National Forest, we stopped briefly for a photo opportunity in West Brattleboro at the Creamery Covered Bridge. 

Cynthia and Larry were not expecting us until after 11:00 am. In order to kill some time we drove into Nashua.  We parked below Water Street at the entrance to Le Parc De Notre Renaissance Franchise.

We walked a short way along the Nashua River, in Le Parc De Notre Renaissance Franchise. The first thing to catch my eye was a sculpture of a woman and a child.

Later in the week we would meet up with a blogging friend and her husband. My blogging friend and her husband live in what used to be a textile mill.

From Nashua we drove to Cynthia and Larry’s house, arriving there shortly after noon.  Lunch was served around 1:00 pm. 

We enjoyed a Thanksgiving feast of roast turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, baked squash, green beans, Brussels Sprouts with walnuts baked in maple syrup, and cranberry salad.  For dessert we had a variety of delectable cupcakes to choose from.

We left Cynthia and Larry’s house for our hotel sometime between 4:00 and 4:30 pm, with plans to meet up again at 1:00 pm the next day. We drove to the Clarion Inn located in Nashua NH.  The hotel is about a 20-minute drive from Cynthia and Larry’s house.  We checked into room 235, which would be our home for the next 3 nights. Our hotel room was spacious with a king-size bed and a couch that would fit three people comfortably. Our room would sleep four people, as the couch pulls out into a bed. The room is equipped with a refrigerator, microwave and coffee maker.

We got up for the day on Friday around 6:30 am, after a good night’s sleep.  The clerk who checked us in the prior night said that our room would be quiet, and it was. The rooms on our side of the hotel are used only as needed in late fall and winter. An hour after awakening we had showered, gotten dressed, had breakfast and were back in our hotel room.  There were less offerings at breakfast here than there were in Vermont.  We could make our own pancakes or waffles; there were cereal and packaged muffins selections; yogurt was available ; and there were juice, coffee and tea selections.  We preferred the breakfast at Best Western Bennington.

We spent Friday afternoon and evening with Cynthia and Larry.  We enjoyed a second Thanksgiving dinner that included open-faced turkey sandwiches with gravy and soup that Larry prepared using leftover turkey, rice and vegetables. Later in the day we left to go to an inaugural outdoor light show, located on The Links at LaBelle Winery golf course in Derry, NH. Unfortunately it was raining, so we didn’t see the display.  We drove by a couple houses in Bedford that are usually lit up for Christmas.  One house had decorations outside, but the lights were not turned on.  The other house didn’t have any decorations on display.  So, we didn’t get to see any Christmas lights. For dinner we had Chinese take-out that Bob and Larry picked up.  After dinner we sat in the living room and chit-chatted for a while.  We left for the hotel around 7:45 pm.  Twenty minutes later we arrived at the hotel.

Thank you, Cynthia and Larry, for a wonderful Thanksgiving! We enjoyed our time with you and look forward to the next time we get together with each other.

**TO BE CONTINUED**