The Francis Family: "Babymoon" Part 2

SATURDAY 5/24:

We awake in Montpelier, VT and head into town for the farmer's market to check out what the locals are up to on a saturday morning. To our surprise we saw a nice combination of average americans, kids, dogs and hippies. Everyone moved around the small alley/parking lot sampling food, greeting dogs and listening to a guitar player/singer. Of course we had to try the spicy Indian kebabs and hippy tent featuring Goo Balls and no-bake raspberry pie. Interesting and pretty filling to our surprise! Ok, enough of that for now...

Off to Mt Washington, New Hampshire!
But first, how about a stop at the Cabot Creamery to see how cheese is made and of course sample all of their cheeses. (You would think we were on a culinary tour!) http://www.cabotcheese.com/
Below you can see the long troughs used to drain/separate the whey from the curds.
This is also where the workers add the salt by hand.

The molds that they use to make cheese wheels are in the front of the picture, behind is a huge block of cheese that is being vacuum packed and getting ready for the aging process.

A Crown product (with Francis Mfg parts) moving cheese to be aged in a warehouse.

A view of the scenary along the way. Beautiful...

and not so much.

The drive from Cabot, VT to Mt Washington, NH proved to be a little bit longer than we originally thought, though it was a pleasant 2.5 hour drive. The weather had been 65 and sunny since we began our journey on Friday monrning. In the evenings it was about 45-50 degrees or so. So with the sun in our eyes and nothing but luscious green fields/trees we came to the conclusion that:
1. without a Garmin GPS system we may not have found our way on the backroads (Thanks Dave!) and 2. the happiest cows are in Vermont!

Beside the point... if you look at the link for the Google map of our journey (previous blog entry) you can see the route followed. After some bad advice from the lady at Cabot, we went south instead of going north and had to backtrack down our path. But eventually we made it to the Mt Washington Auto Toll road. http://www.mountwashingtonautoroad.com/

So for $27 we received a terrifying drive up the mountain, a CD that told us the history of the mountain and of course the "This Car Climbed Mt Washington" bumper sticker. At the bottom of the mountain the temp was 65degrees and the sign showed that at the top it was 28degrees.

The ride up the mountain...

(no offense, but Joe I don't know if you could make it on this drive, love ya.)

freezing at the top...50mph winds and 28degree temp = 10degrees with the windchill...brrrrrr.

Walkway to the tippy top.

Mark at 6,288 ft.

Marie with the park sign and the cog train that you can also take to the top.

The trail that leads to the top, part of the Appalachian Trail.

The house at the top that is chained down so it doesn't blow away.

Now back down...

the scary drive...

and the stupendous driver...

After the descent and a 30 min drive we made it to our next destination - North Conway, NH.

Here is our B & B, The Merrill Farm Resort.

We checked in and went into town to find something to eat. The choice for the evening...Flatbread Pizza Co (A fabulous chain of restaurants in the Northeast. http://www.flatbreadcompany.com/2007Home.htm)

They use all organic ingredients and free range meats, and they cook the pizzas

in a wood fire oven.