Hanging Out With Sam and Karen/Walking Around Keene/Driving Around the Old Neighborhood

It has been a long time since I have blogged and I have a LOT of catching up to do!

Last September I spent a weekend with Sam and Karen and went to the arts fair at the Ashuelot River Park. There is a great walking path that has been built.

Cory, is this where you are hiding out?

One of my favorite places on Main Street!

It has been so great to spend time with my New Hampshire relatives! Sam is an avid cribbage player and has retaught me the game....he does all the math incredibly fast in his head--it's a sight in itself to watch him count cards!

Karen made these delicious cherry tomatoes stuffed w/bacon and onion....

 LOBSTERRRRRR!!(or is it "lobstah"?)

Not one, but TWOOOOO!

Karen and Sam have this bird feeder attached to the kitchen window that

 attracts a pretty variety of birds.

Sam and I dropped by the home of Joyce Williams, who we have known for years.  She played the piano at church for as long as I can remember, and was my Seminary teacher (we met on Sunday mornings before church and did home study the rest of the week) during high school.  Her daughter Jolene and I took dancing lessons together. We have a lot of history--it was great to reconnect with her.  She and I share Outlander passion!

On a different day later in the fall, Sam and I drove around Marlboro; here is his best friend Rich Seaver's childhood home, up on Water St. (we posted this for Rich cuz the house was getting fixed up after looking dilapidated for many years)...

Pretty fall colors on the backroads...

Sam and I drove up around Mt Monadnock to this home--and he told me the story of an alleged Nazi spy who used to live here....the house has been beautifully restored.

Saw this wild turkey as I was driving around on a back road.

This paved road used to be the gravel driveway going to my Grandparents' home-the Price farm in Sullivan; you cannot see the house because of all the shrubbery, and I could go no further in because there are "No Trespassing" signs. Bummer

Sam and I stopped at Doug's Dogs located in the old Wilbur's parking lot in Marlborough.

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This house on Main St is where my family lived before I was born. After they moved to the Jaffrey Road house, my Uncle Harry and Aunt Verna and their family moved in. I remember it being their home.  My Uncle Harry grew a huge garden in the backyard.

A couple of views of Dublin Lake.....

Mt. Monadnock from the Dublin side...

Stone Pond Road

Frost Hill.  This gazebo was the turnaround point on this particular bikeriding route during my childhood.  In the background you can see part of the expansive Frost/Hale estate.

The gazebo is just to the right of this road; this view is looking down the hill toward Marlborough...

...and this is the opposite direction: looking toward the mountain and toward Jaffrey Rd. and the cemetery.

My dad and I would often stop at this cemetery on our bike rides and look for checkerberries.

Some of the stones in this cemetery date back to the early 1700s.

Now this is just plain creepy.

I love walking on the spongy moss and seeing all the acorns.

Some of the gravestones have poems on them:

Cool white fungi.

Checkerberries! They have a sweet minty flavor like wintergreen, as do the leaves.

I was told as a child that these old tombs held dead bodies, so I always rode my bike really fast past here.....

Moving right along...here is a view of Mt. Monadnock from the Troy/Jaffrey/Marlborough side, looking across Perkins Pond.

Along Route 10 by the Connecticut River...heading back north to Carl's house.