Like all of my trips, I can’t wrap up my writing about it until I give some general impressions that are solely the opinion of yours truly.

I found it interesting in the naming of just about every restaurant included the name of the place plus “& Tavern” or “...and Pub” or some other combination of words that included “Restaurant Name & Drinking Establishment”.  It reminded me of my home state of Wisconsin (yep, I’m actually a native Cheesehead and not a Michigander) where the pub culture is closely tied with family restaurants.

In places where an older city might not have the space needed to accommodate car lanes (not a bad thing), you tend to see very short on-ramps.  We expected that in Boston and the outlying suburbs but didn’t expect it to apply to most of New England!  What was amusing was that I came across this Boston Globe article while waiting at Logan airport for our return trip.

Making up for the short on-ramp access was New Hampshire’s ban (from at least what I can tell) on outdoor billboards.  We drove for 600 miles that weekend and came across TWO billboards in the state – one while we were getting close to the outlet stores in North Conway and one on our way south (I believe it was between Concord and New Hampshire).  What a novel concept – not cluttering up a beautiful landscape with soulless advertising.  Georgia, and most other states, could really take a hint from the Granite State about preserving the natural beauty of where one lives.

The vertical incline of some of the White Mountains is impressive.  Some of the ski runs I saw are just as steep as anything in the Rockies (albeit with less total length).  No need to head out west when there are legitimately difficult slopes to navigate in the northeast.  Granted, I don’t know squat about skiing and understand that Colorado/Utah/Wyoming is mecca for a lot of skiers but I don’t think you’re getting short-changed by skiing in New England.

Given a few more days, I would have liked to scour more of New Hampshire’s larger towns such as Portsmouth and Nashua (among others).  Overall, I was very impressed with the state for a lot of reasons.

We’d also like to visit Vermont extensively.  Spending an hour in a state is no way to be truly acquainted with it but we were quite impressed with its beauty too.  The whole northeast part of the country is a gem and we intend to see a lot more of it in the future.

I know I’ve had a good time at a place if I catch myself smiling automatically at random times.  This happened the entire weekend.  It means my mind was content, I was happy and life was good.  The only way to make it more perfect was to have both our girls with us although it was relaxing to have our first “alone” trip in over 5 years too.  Yep, we haven’t had a trip without the girls since Megan was pregnant with Ally and we toured England and Scotland while she was 5 months pregnant.

Dunkin’ Donuts – particularly in Massachusetts but also in New Hampshire, they define the term “market saturation”.  And also “saturated fat”.  Ba-dump!  Seriously, how the hell does that region support so many of the same stores?!  Holy mackerel!  If you’re not in the mood for a donut, drive 5 miles and you’ll see at least a few Dunkin’ Donuts stores.  Talk about power of suggestion; how can you get any work done if all you’re thinking about is a chocolate glazed donut due to the fact that you passed 12 stores on the way into work?  Don’t get me wrong; I like DD too, but in moderation.

Thank you, New Hampshire, for giving us a near-perfect weekend in almost every aspect.