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My First Thanksgiving

Thursday was my first Thanksgiving Day in America. We travelled to the Keene area of New Hampshire to celebrate with our parents and my wifes’ sister. A great time was had by all! The Thanksgiving meal was fantastic; it included turkey, sausage stuffing, sweet potato, cranberry rolls, vegetables, prosciutto ham, salad, pumpkin bread with cranberry butter and a gorgeous sweet potato pie.

Following the meal we went on a 3 mile walk. We walked to a nearby monument which stands where the house of the mother of a former president used to stand. It was nice to get a stretch of the legs and help the turkey go down!

In the evening we played Clue (Cludo in the UK) until we got tired.

The following day my father and I drove across the border into Massachusetts to do a walk to Royalston Falls which is a 40 foot waterfall. We saw a series of small falls and some wonderful rock formations along the ravine but did not end up seeing the main fall (as we discovered when we got back and read the literature!). While we were in the ravine it snowed a little and transformed the forest into a winter scene. On the walk back to our car I slipped on a cleverly disguised block of ice and fell over! Don’t worry though, the camera around my neck was left undamaged! I landed on my left arm and bruised it a bit though!

For the remainder of the day we drove with the rest of the family to some covered bridges and to the Vermont Country Store, followed by coffee at Burdicks.

I really enjoyed my first Thanksgiving and I am now looking forward to my second!

We travelled up to North Conway today to do some outlet shopping. After we were done spending all our money we set out in search for covered bridges. Well I say search, it didnt take much searching as I recently programmed 2150 of them into my Garmin satnav! We visited 4 bridges in total including one which had been converted into a gift shop and another which was no longer sat over a river! The first bridge we visited was Bartlett Bridge which is now privately owned and serving as a gift shop. I did not stop to take a picture as the bridge looked somewhat dissapointing in it’s new role.

Whittier Bridge was the second of the bridges we visited. It had been removed from its rightful position over bearcamp river to the west bank of the river for restoration. The work is due to be completed in 2010 and will cost an estimated $632,000.

Saco Bridge is located in Conway Village. It was built in 1890 at a cost of $4000 and is 224 feet in length.

On the way back home we re-routed via Albany to see the appropriately named Albany Bridge. This bridge was built in 1858, it is 120 feet in length and in my opinion was the prettiest of the bridges we saw today. A quick search on Google finds some really stunning pictures of the bridge in the fall colour. We shall have to take a trip back next year to get some leafy shots!

Disused Rail Bridge, originally uploaded by jonathan020.

It’s almost impossible to take a bad picture in New England in October. The fall colour is everywhere you turn. This picture was taken in Dover, NH and is of a disused railway bridge over the Cocheco River.

Taken at 1/80th sec, f/6.3, ISO100 at 66mm.