Catching Up...Center Harbor, New Hampshire

Sorry I've been silent for so long...we've been so busy visiting family (on both sides) and getting our new camper squared away, that I've barely had time to get to my iPad. I've been taking photos all along, though, and now I'll try to catch you up a bit on our activities.

Before I get to describing the camper, I want to briefly revisit last Sunday, August 31, in Center Harbor, New Hampshire. We left our campsite a half-hour away in Chocorua, N.H. (Site of our last  3 nights in the pop-up) to go to church. We attended the historical Center Harbor Congregational Church, overlooking beautiful Lake Winnepesaukee. (I think I spelled it right this time, after a couple of botched attempts in previous posts. I love Wikipedia; it helps keep me accurate!) 

 

The service was lovely, the congregation friendly, and the pastor's sermon really touched Curt and me. It gave both of us plenty to chew on and think about this whole week. 

The church is 175 years old, as you can see on the banner in this photo.

 

For someone who has lived most of the last 40 years in the western States, where everything is relatively young, it boggles my mind to worship in a church that's been around since LONG before the Civil War!

Since it's pretty much the Shirer tradition to close out any gathering (we don't consciously try to do that...we just enjoy conversations with other people so much that it just sort of happens that way...time and again!), I had a chance to catch this photo of Curt and Pastor Nancy as the last ones out the door.

We had a terrific lunch in a local cafe, and then I simply had to follow Patty's advice. Remember Patty, Curt's sister, from the Shirer family reunion on July 4th? (Center, photo below)

A couple weeks ago, when Patty, who understands and sympathizes with my addictions for all things fiber-related, heard we were going to be in this area, she told me I MUST visit two renowned shops in Center Harbor: Keepsake Quilting and Patternworks. Well, one must keep family members happy, you know. 

Keepsake Quilting was the first stop. That's the biggest quilt shop I've ever been in, and I've been in a LOT of them! If I had my sewing machine with me on this trip, I would have really been in trouble there. As it was, I greatly enjoyed browsing but managed to escape unscathed. 

Not so in Patternworks, a beautiful yarn store with an equally impressive inventory. I had to limit my browsing to one corner of the shop, or I might have been there for weeks!

Fortunately, I knew Curt was ensconced with a book on the wide veranda connecting these two shops, where they place comfortable Adirondack chairs for the DPH's (Dear Patient Husbands) to wait while their wives spend the family grocery budget and half of next month's mortgage on the goods inside.

I emerged victorious an hour later with my plunder and took it straight to the minivan. As I was stashing it behind the front seat before hunting for Curt, I noticed that the inside of the van contained things that didn't look familiar to me. I cracked up laughing when I realized that my minivan is safely tucked in Will and Dorothy Schmidt's garage in Kerrville, Texas. I almost donated my new purchases to some unsuspecting (and almost-lucky) woman who was still shopping in Patternworks!

Still laughing, I safely stowed it in our pick-up (no mistaking that one, with a year's worth of supplies inside!) and set off to retrieve Curt. I found him sitting in a line-up of four DPH's, all laughing, joking and enjoying good male camaraderie. 

As we left, I said to the other gentlemen, "Thank you for entertaining my husband." One of them said, "Oh, no, it was exactly the opposite!" Somehow, I'm not surprised.

Monday (Labor Day) we left New Hampshire and headed again for Ross and Lorna's house (Curt's brother and sister-in-law) in Massachusetts. Prevailing upon family, we spent the next 2 days unloading the pop-up and sprucing it up, inside and out, for the return trip to Maine to trade it in on our new 23' travel trailer. We left an impressive pile of stuff on Ross and Lorna's garage floor as we headed off for a few days. We kept enough of our belongings with us to give us a good start on "moving in" to the new trailer. And now we're visiting my cousin Kim and her husband Brad in Henniker, New Hampshire. I'll write about that visit very soon, as well as introduce you to our new home on wheels. But right now I'm the last one up on Saturday morning...so I need to get up and out of bed. Curt and I will pack up our things and head back to Ross and Lorna's today, so they can have their garage back. Stay tuned!