American Thumb - Day 12 - North Conway to Exeter, New Hampshire

We have a new favourite channel.  It's called The Weather Channel and, funnily enough, all day long it talks about the weather.  In England, we make fun of ourselves for always talking about the weather.  But here, they have other people do it for them on a channel devoted to it.  It's because this country is vast and there are so many different weathers going on at any one time.  We're keeping an eye on Nashville because we're due to head there tomorrow and for the last couple of days, it's been in some kind of red zone.  They keep showing footage of a tornado and hailstones bigger than baseballs.  It seems to be calming down now so there's no need to watch, but we're addicted.

New Hampshire has had its own extremes in the last few days.  From the rain and fog of a few days ago, I'm sat in our hotel room nursing the sunburn my arms acquired from our morning in the outdoor pool and our afternoon picnic on the beach.  S has a tiny band of pink across her nose and cheeks and of course, I feel terrible about it.  But who could have seen it coming given the weather we've been dealing with.

The sky is clear today and the sun bright.  E has plotted a route through New Hampshire along the tiniest, most scenic roads by using A MAP.   NOT SAT NAV.  This blows my mind because I have become so reliant on sat nav in recent times that I can barely guide myself out of the cul-de-sac we live in.  So I drive and E navigates and it's wonderful fun.  We stop for lunch on the shore of Lake Winnipesaukee, the biggest lake in New Hampshire.  The lake is big enough to contain almost 300 islands.  Anyway, it's massive and in summer it's a total tourist trap.  But today is a Tuesday and even though the weather is perfect, everyone is at school or work.  We have the place to ourselves.  We eat, we walk, we paddle (freezing), we take lots of photos.  Then we carry on with our scenic drive, S enjoying a well deserved afternoon nap in the back.

Tonight, we're in Exeter, New Hampshire.  It's about an hour away from the airport in Boston where we're flying from tomorrow afternoon, so we chose it both for its convenient location and for the fact that John Irving (the writer I mentioned in yesterday's post) was born and grew up here.  After we checked into our hotel, we took a walk into town.  I expected John Irving gift shops and guided tours and blue plaques everywhere (John sat on this bench.  John had coffee here a couple of times) but there's none of that.  There are a lot of book shops and I figure they're the best place to ask about any Irving information and I catch an antique book dealer as he's packing up his stuff in front of his shop.  He tells me he knew John Irving grew up on Pine Street but that's it.  Then he tells me that he bought some books from Irving's father a few years ago.  They were leatherbound volumes of Johnson and Pepys and the like.  'Doesn't John want them?' the bookseller asked.  'He says they make him sneeze,' said Irving's father.  I don't know what to do with that so I do an awkward laugh because I think that' sweat the bookseller wants from me.  It's a weird little anecdote but I've included it because it's all I've learned about one of my heroes while visiting his home town.

I leave E and S in a restaurant - where S is gleefully finishing a bowl of ice cream - and go to find Pine Street.  The bookseller has led me to believe that it's just a couple of hundred metres away.  I'm walking fast so I can get back to E and S but I am wearing long sleeves because I am ashamed of my pink arms and I'm getting sweaty.  Pine Street is far.  By the time I get to it, I can't be bothered going down it.  I wouldn't know which house would have been John's and this place wouldn't have made a fuss of it so I would have no way of knowing.  I stand on the corner and look down it.  It looks alright.  I take a pretty poor photo.  And then I head back.  As I walk, I get a call from E.  She and S are heading back to the hotel.  Fair enough - there's only so many ways you can entertain a two year old when you're stood on the street, waiting for her dad to finish messing around looking down roads people he likes used to live on.  I quicken my pace and catch up to them, sweaty, but happy.  The sky is darker now and I'm ready for bed.

By the way, if you're interested in John Irving, I recommend him very highly.  Exeter is mentioned in a good few of his books but I can't remember which.  They're long-ish books (long for me anyway) but they always drag you in straight away - not like thrillers, but by sort of chatting to you.  Anyway, check out my favourites which are:

The Cider House Rules

Last Night in Twisted River

The World According to Garp

A Prayer For Owen Meany