To New Hampshire, starting with the train

So a couple of weeks ago I took the train, with my mom, to New Hampshire. Well actually we took it to Boston and then took a rental car the rest of the way.

This all started when we were kids and would go to visit my grandparents at Lake Winnipesaukee.   I take that back, it really started when my mom was a kid. My mom and her parents came to America when my mom was 10 years old. They came from Germany and didn't speak much English. So my grandparents worked for a couple that had a lot of money. My grandfather fixed the cars and took care of the grounds. My grandmother was the house keeper and took care of the kids. The family they worked for had a house on Lake Winnipesaukee on Bear Island.  You could only get to this island by boat.

(this is Bear Island, that Bear didn't use to be there)

(Because they only way to get to the island was by boat, the mail is delivered by boat too. My mom can remember running down to meet the mail boat)

 

My mom and my grandparents  would take a little fold boat and go to bear island. They would bring a tent and camp out. They also brought their cat with them. My mom said they would take the leash off the cat and off she would go. But as soon as they started packing up, the cat would show up, just in time to go home.

Eventually my grandparents learned to speak English and got other jobs. My grandfather worked for PanAm and my grandmother worked at a bank. They remained very good friends with the couple they worked for. That couple decided to buy another house on lake W.  but this time it would be accessible by car. So the bought a small summer house on Governor's Island. It was a small log cabin with two bedrooms and one bathroom.  The couple wanted the lot but not really the house. They wanted to build a large house that was a year round place. The lot with the cabin was on it, was very large. So my grandparents asked if they would divide the lot in half and let my grandparents buy the lot with the cabin. So that's what they did.

 

Here was the log cabin.

 

That door on the bottom left was added when I was already in college.  My grandfather was making a basement and they were trying to see if they could live there in the winter. They only made it through one winter, it was to cold for them.

I took this the year I graduated from college. They first thing I bought when I graduated was a dog. Even before I bought a new car. LOL  Anyway, this was the fire place in the cabin.

 

What a cute puppy!!

 

We went by the property while we were up there, this year. My grandparents had to sell the cabin because they reassessed the properties and the taxes were now more  then what they made on their retirement salary. The people who bought it, just wanted the lot. They bulldozed the house. Here is what it looks like now.

 

 

This was their friends house , that they bought the cabin lot from. Their house still looks the same except for the buildings added on the back there.  But the big house, looks just like it did when we were kids.

 

This was the house on the other side of my grandparents. They had a girl the same age as me and we played and hung out together. I don't know what her family did but they were rich. Their house looks the same.

 

One year, their daughter and I were outside, probably swimming. He her dad was landing his new helicopter.  The helicopter had pontoons on the legs, to land on water.  Well when the pontoons hit the water, the water is freezing cold, they started to deflate. Her dad took his pants off and got out of the helicopter.  I think he was trying to prevent it from sinking.  It didn't sink. Tiffany and I were just laughing and Im sure he didn't think it was to funny. The next year when we went to the lake , the helicopter had a platform.

 

I just posted this so you could see the helicopter. I was much younger when he first brought it to the lake.

 

So now you have some history. We went to the lake every summer for 2 weeks, that I could remember. We had lots of good memories of the lake. So my sister decided to buy a house on Lake W. and asked me to come up for my birthday. (We always went to the lake around  my birthday).  I decided to ask my mom to go with me since she had lots of memories there too. I knew she wouldn't fly, so the first plan was to drive. But after thinking about driving 20 hours, I didn't think I could do it. So we decided to take the train.

The train took about 24 hours. The first half of the ride was had a "roomette". It has two small chairs and fold down into a bed and another bed on top that pulls down. The toilet is right in the room too.

 

 

Here is the room and my suitcase is sitting on the toilet.

 

 

I know you want to see the toilet. That is the sink above, you pull it down to use it.

 

 

This is a picture of me lying in my bed. You are looking at my feet. You can touch both sides of the walls with your hands.

 

 

This was the aisle way to the room. You felt like you were drunk when walking in the hallway. It swayed a lot.

 

 

This was the dinning car. The meals were very good . I had steak  Coming home the ride during dinner was rough but going up it was fine.

So we left Savannah at 8pm and we were suppose to change trains in New York at 1pm. But our train was running really late and the train guy (who takes care of you in the roomette section)  felt we were going to miss our train in New York. So in Washington DC, he called the conductor of the other train, that was now in Washington DC at the same time as us. And asked if we could switch trains now. He said we could. Lucky we didn't check our bags and had them with us. You didn't have much time and got off and went over to the other platform and got on the other train. Of course I get off the train and start walking and I can feel I must have started my period. Ugh, that explains my migraine at 3am. . There were no bathrooms , that I could see, and we didn't really have time to stop. We got on the other train. You cant use the bathrooms until the train starts moving. we only sat there about 2 minutes and the train started. So I got to the bathroom ASAP.  Oh the joy of being a women. Good think I had every thing I needed. You couldn't really buy anything on the train.

Now we  stayed on this train all the way to Boston. We got to Boston a 6:30pm.  Then took a taxi to the airport to get the rental car. There is a rental car place at one of the train stations in Boston, but they closed at 4:30pm on Sundays.   So we got our rental car and were on the way to New Hampshire.

Did you know at McDonalds you can get a lobster sandwich?

And they tasted pretty good. Not as good as the hot lobster sandwich I had later in the week but not bad at all. And 1/2 the price too.

We pulled up to my sisters at 10pm that night. I was beat and a little grouchy.  LOL

More on the trip tomorrow.

Weekend Visit with Stephanie

 

This weekend I went down to Myrtle Beach to see Stephanie.  She is now in her new apartment and since she doesn't have any furniture, we decided we would go shopping.  Also, I brought her her big screen TV. She had bought in on black Friday for when she got her apartment.  It was to big to fit in her car , so I had to bring it to her.

Her apartment is nice. This is what she sees out her back screened porch.

I also brought her diploma that I had framed.

On Saturday we went to Myrtle beach and walked.

It was pretty crowed but not to bad. It was 9am , so I cant imagine what it was line at 12noon.  The waves were huge but I couldn't get a picture that really showed them.

After that we went to breakfast at a place called "Eggs Up".  It was packed and I can see why. The food was great.
Then we went furniture shopping. Well we actually started Friday but everything at all the stores were very expensive. So I looked up used furniture on the intranet. I found this place called "Unclaimed Furniture".  So we went there on Saturday. They had really good deals. We found this dresser/TV stand that had been reduced because it had a blemish on the corner. Its not really that noticeable.

It was a deal. Only 150.00.    I was worried we wouldn't be able to carry it up the stairs, Stephanie lives on the 2nd flood. But we did it without any problems. (we took the draws out)..  So now Stephanie has some place to put her clothes, instead of plastic bins.  We also put up curtains.

This King Kong was huge. You can see the sign below on the left, for a size comparison.

The next day we went to Huntington Beach. Ive been wanting to go there with the RV, so I wanted to check it out ahead of time. (I wouldn't go during the summer because its to crowed).

 They had these big chairs outside the camp store. They are USC and Clemson colors. 
 The beach was very nice. They have life guards where you first walk onto the beach.  But if you go further down the beach, no life guards but no people either. LOL.

Sorry the picture isn't good. I must have pressed something that darkened it. I tried to fix it on my computer. It looks fake now. Ugh!

Its so nice to walk at the beach.  When we got down to the RV section, there were lots of dogs on the beach.  Kind of hot for dogs to be on the beach , IMO, but nice to know people are all ok with dogs on the beach.

We had a good time and bought some T-shirts at the camp store.  It was sad to go home but that's life.

Wordless Wednesday

July 4th in Savannah

We went to Savannah for a few days during July 4th.  It was really hot and humid but I did take my dogs for some short walks.

There were a bunch of trees around this one pond. There were birds everywhere. I could have spent hours there. I didn't because the people riding bicycles kept coming by.

This guy must be use to people because I got really close. He didn't care. At home, they fly away so easily.

Now he did fly away when the dogs lunged and barked at him.

Look at this brown bird. He was huge!!!

That dark blue colored bird seemed to be fighting with an all white bird. At least that's what it looked like. Could have been something else. Look at the bird on the left top. To funny looking.

Then this fox came running right toward us. It was like he thought he knew my dogs. Then he pulled up short.  He did slowly make his way our direction. I kept walking away. It was making me nervous. In SC we have had numerous foxes bite kids. It would be kids on a playground at a park or church. The fox would just run out and bit the kids. The fox was always rabid. Ugh.  I couldn't find a big stick if I needed it.

He crossed the street toward us. I kept going to the marina. Other people where starting to walk around, so I think he decided to  leave.

This was a small alligator. We saw a bigger one when I was driving but by the time I turned around to go back, he was gone.  

I was hope to see the squirrel that I said was a bunny-squirrel. It had a small white fluffy tail. I got video but no pictures.  If I get around to up loading the video, I post it later.