Saturday 15th October - Exploring

Thankfully, Eleri had been released from hospital the previous day, and we decided to go for a day out with Tasha and family as planned, whilst bearing in mind that we would have to be guided by how Eleri was doing.  We headed off in convoy having agreed to follow the others to Concord, the capital of New Hampshire, taking photographs en route of some of the lovely autumn (or should that be fall) colours.

This was our introduction to the fact that you find the same named towns over and over again in the US.  This Concord (N.H) was entirely separate to the one we’d visited only 2 days ago, despite being only slightly further away geographically, but in a different State.  We also passed NH’s version of Salem and have gone on  to see at least 3 Lexingtons, a very popular town name indeed!  We also started paying attention to the State slogans displayed on vehicle number plates and NH is one of our favourites – ‘Live free or die’ which appears to be the thought process behind such decisions as not bothering with motorcycle helmets and other overly-cautious items like that.

We weren’t overly enamoured with what we saw of Concord, very industrial. So we drove east towards the coastal town of Portsmouth which had much more character, and a lovely bar/restaurant which brews its own beer.  We had a lovely lunch followed by a walk around to soak up the atmosphere in the bright, though fresh, sunshine. Eleri was somewhat quiet, understandably, but we all had a lovely day out.

Simon and I had a previous arrangement to visit someone in Boston on the way home to part with more cash.  After the prior experience with Craigslist I was hesitant, but Simon was very excited about the potential purchase of our inflatable boat, a Sea Eagle 330 don’t-cha-know.  We had viewed some YouTube clips of other proud Sea Eagle owners displaying how easy it is to inflate and use the boat, how tricky could it be?! We made contact with the sellers outside their flat, a very nice young couple who were gifted said boat but had never got around to using it.  True to their word, it appeared as good as new with all of the accessories present.  We passed on the idea of inflating the whole thing to double-check for holes – their flat was very compact and we were exhausted from our day out so we took their word that it was a sound purchase.  We parted with $50 cash and heaved the canvas bag containing our new inflatable boat down to the hire car and headed back to Westford.  I was yet to be convinced how regularly we would be getting the opportunity to use our new purchase during our trip but Simon was enthusiastic that we should embrace the outdoor American lifestyle in as many ways as possible!