Trip to Portsmouth

We are home! We had a very nice trip to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We left around 8 on Saturday morning. Our first stop was Dunkin Donuts for breakfast. An excellent start if I must say so myself! Dick had his usual small coffee, not filled up to the top, and two chocolate frosted donuts. And, of course, they filled it up to the top which irritates him to no end. I ordered a Tropicana Orange Coolata with whipped cream on top and a multi-grain bagel with low fat cream cheese. I know, I know.......this is so out of character for me. I have been known to eat a whole dozen of donuts with my partner in crime Anne Marie. But in my infinite wisdom, I realize today that if I have a sugar rush first thing in the morning, I will be in one foul mood for the rest of the day. And that would not be a good start to the weekend away. But.....back to the trip........

Dick picked a route down the coast. We had driven north to Bar Harbor, but not south. It was beautiful. There was a beach, complete with rocks. Some parts of the beach had more rocks than others. The beach communities reminded us of the beaches down south 30 or more years ago. We liked it and decided to try and go for a weekend when it warms up a little. The houses on the coast are so pretty. Dick said he had started to like the looks of houses up here.....I must admit I am feeling the same way. We saw a lot of houses overlooking the ocean that we wished we could buy. We went through Kennebunkport, but decided that George and Barbara Bush would have to wait for out visit. We were on a mission to shop at the outlets at Kittery. I guess we will stop in next time. You can't do everything.....we will catch you later Barbara!

The stars must not have been lined up or something but I just was not in the shopping mood. So we left after a couple of stores and drove on to Portsmouth. We were hungry though, so we stopped at a seafood place and ate. It was good, though our little restaurant in Turner has much better lobster rolls! But we had some wonderful beer there and actually, our drinks cost almost more than our meal. We drove around downtown and decided to get out and shop there for a while. Weezie was with us and we discovered that almost everyone in Portsmouth has a dog and had them on a leash downtown also. We did a little bit of window shopping. Now I know that I have probably alluded to the fact that Weezie does not know that she is a ......dog. It must be a law there at you can only have dogs that weigh over 75 lbs. Weezie was pretty horrified at the prospect of walking on the same sidewalk as these "animals". She would try to climb up my leg. I would carry her then put her down. Well, she met another dog on the sidewalk and.....you guessed it.......it scared the crap out of her. Literally. Oh yes, that was fun. Thankfully, I had some tissues and gracefully proceeded to pick it up while stepping in it all at the same time. And of course the sidewalk was packed with people. You get the picture. I am pretty sure Weezie had been saving up for this moment for some time. After finding a garbage can to throw the tissues away, we left to find the hotel. We stayed at the Hampton Inn. It was very nice. Weezie got in her Vera bag and we smuggled her in to the room. Dick fell asleep on the couch then moved to the bed. I was laying on the bed watching a movie and listening to Dick and Weezie snoring, so I decided to join them. It was a glorious nap. Dick woke up before me and actually went shopping without me. Now don't get too excited. There was a Home Depot right by the hotel and a Circuit City across the street. When he got back, we went to eat at a BBQ place down the road. It had started to snow. We watched the snow falling through the window at our booth. It was so pretty. But it was above freezing so it was not sticking.....yet. We got back to the room and watched a movie that we had never seen and then it was lights out!

Today, we left about 10. We backtracked part of the way to see the coast again. Then we headed to a maple syrup farm. Today was Maple Syrup Sunday in Maine. A lot of the farms that harvest and manufacture maple syrup open up their farms and give tours and samples. Cars were lining the side of the roads. We found a place to park and started walking. We saw where they evaporated the water out of the syrup. They gave everyone a scoop of ice cream with maple syrup on top. Delish Delish Delish! Give it a try! They were having a pancake breakfast there, but we had already gotten something to eat by that time. We bought some of their syrup. Outside, there was a long line of people waiting to get a stick of maple taffy. They had made a layer of snow on the table and poured lines of maple syrup on it. They took popsicle sticks and pulled and pulled it and wound it around the stick. That looked like something that I would have been interested in eating, but I didn't want to wait in line for it. So we left with our syrup and headed home. We ate some lunch and decided to go to a farm that is pretty close to our house. They were doing the maple syrup, but it was in a shack down a hill that was muddy and we decided not to go slippin' and sliddin'. But we did go into the barn to see the animals. I took some pictures and had hoped to post them with this post, but something is not cooperating with my plans. So I will post them later. Sorry!

I don't know if we ate something out of the ordinary or just had too much fun, but my stomach is not feeling well today and neither is Dick's. I feel sorry for Dick having to go back to work tomorrow. Hopefully, he will be up to snuff.

I hope I didn't bore you with all the sorted details. It was a good weekend.

I will talk to you later! Tootles!