Hundreds of Miles of Almost Perfect Roads Make Touring in New Hampshire reason why we had passed so many For many years a summer resort, The Moosilauke Valley seen from Hawk Cliff at Rumney, showing sible that at some not too distant date You who go motoring in midsummer will miss many of the things which made our trip particularly lovely:-the fragrance of apple-blossom and the snowy whiteness of wild cherry, the pastel colorings of the new green trees, the patches of snow on the northern slopes of the presidential range and along the southern roadside in the Dixville Notch. You will miss also the interesting experience of being at Hanover when the college is in session. If you go that If you go that way now, you'll find much to interest you; records of Dartmouth's tradition in the old landmarks: the Howe Library which used to be the home of Eleazar Wheelock, the old cemetery where the founders of the college lie buried, the house where Daniel Webster lived when he was in college; indications also of the growing future of the college in the unfinished buildings which are rising here and there about the campus. But the village in midsummer is a deserted village, far different from the scene we watched from the high window of the Hanover Inn on the first evening of our journey. Across the road a knot of boys clad in golf jackets and knickers leaned against the senior fence, occupied in the engrossing task of carving each other's senior canes. Other groups, in which the freshmen were always distinguishable by their absurd green caps, gathered and dispersed. As dusk came the groups took greater definiteness and presently from the four sides of the campus in turn came the vigorous sound of college songs and the Indian warwhoop which strikes terror to the hearts of Dartmouth's enemies. The singing groups drew nearer together, forming a hollow square at the center of the campus, and the Alma Mater brought the last "hum" of the season to its close. It brought to a close also the first day of our journey, a day in which we had pines and evergreens, along brown little brooks, and finally out to the broader country of the Connecticut valley with the river winding slowly at our feet and the Green Mountains of Vermont just across the way. The highway passes within a few miles of Sunapee and almost touches the Shaker Village of Enfield, by Lake Mascoma. Both places are worth making a detour to visit. We followed main roads throughout the trip, for back roads are uncertain early in the year. To sketch the trip briefly : -From Hanover we followed north along the River through Lyme and Orford, then swung inland along the Mousilauke Trail through Glencliff and Warren and Wentworth to Plymouth, a short day's trip, but a beautiful one. Then we headed our automobile north and, following an almost straight line through the mountains, climbed through Franconia Notch, into Photo by Phil M. Riley Courtesy Photo Era Magazine A Glimpse of Newfound Lake. the rolling country of the upper Connecticut Valley. Colebrook was the end of that day's journey, and from there we crossed through the jagged Dixville Notch to Errol, took a side trip up past Umbagog Lake to the Azisccos Dam which, although in Maine is an important waterpower development affecting the industry of Berlin. Through the thirty-mile woods along the log-filled Androscoggin, we made our way to Berlin and Gorham, the end of another day's trip. We might have gone directly south from Gorham, and had we done so we should have passed through one of the very beautiful notches of the White Mountain country, Pinkham's Notch; but we felt reluctant to forego the two cross roads, one north and one south of Washington, which include some of the best loved scenery of the mountains. We doubled on Our tracks, therefore, and went northwest, through Randolph and Jefferson to Lancaster, then southeast through Crawford's Notch, Bret Photo by Wm. S. Davis Courtesy Photo Era Magazine The little white church in typical of New Hampshire villages. Wooded Shores, the Weirs, N. H. ton Woods, Bartlett, North Conway. Intervale, the country SO much loved by Whittier. Our destination that day was Wolfboro and we reached there at just the time of day when Whittier wrote "The sunset with its bars of purple cloud, Like a new heaven, shines upward from the lake Of Winnepesaukee." Dixville is the Northern Notch of the White Mountains, narrow, ragged, with an incomparable wild beauty. We found snow here in June on a day when Boston was sweltering in the first heat of the season. It is only a short trip from Wolfboro to Concord, the end of our journey, whether one takes the direct route or goes more leisurely along the Lake to Lakeport and the Weirs and then through Laconia and Franklin. Time pressed us and we took the shorter road through Barnstead and Pittsfield, but the other route is probably more full of interest. We took a little more than five days to the trip. That is a comfortable pace of perhaps an average of one hundred miles a day. But it does not give much time to go off the traveled path, to know the country, to learn its stories, to see the beauty which is hidden away for those who love the hills enough to search for it. At most one can visit only the places made accessible through the enterprise and ingenuity of man: the Polar Caves at Rumney, four miles out. of Plymouth, are the most recently opened of these natural curiosity spots, and the fact that overalls and searchlights and sneakers are ready at call for the tourist makes that trip easy even for the motorist running on an exacting schedule of mileage. The Flume, in Franconia Notch, is another such spot. One does not even have to slow down the car to see the Old Man of the Mountains; and Lost River is a favorite haunt of touring parties. Part of the technique of cultivating the summer tourist crop consists in simplifying his sight-seeing, in making it possible for him to see the maximum variety of wonders in the minimum space of time. It is a legitimate part of the summer business, and a valuable part, for the places exploited are places of unusual beauty which the speeding tourist would otherwise pass by. But one would be fool |