Here's some thoughts I've been sitting on that don't quite warrant their own blog. Of course they all pertain to the Granite State.
1. The Common Man is a small chain of restaurants entirely located in New Hampshire. I just discovered them last winter and I am totally hooked. Each meal comes with complementary bread (two kinds) AND cheese and crackers (all you can eat). The entrees are delicious and if you visit their website (www.thecman.com) there are quite a few selected recipes for your home enjoyment.
2. Visited Fun World in Nashua for the first time in maybe 15 years. That is an hour or so and 5-10 dollars well spent. Played air hockey, Daytona Racing, a few shoot 'em up games and one of those football throwing games like the basketball shooting games. If you can shake the pedophilic feeling of being there, I recommend it.
3. Dined at La Carreta on Saturday night. I gotta say, I don't get it. Food was decent, served quickly and plentiful at a reasonable price, but the wait was ridiculous long (about an hour if you don't include our trip to Fun World) and the parking situation is a mess (our friends had to park at a car dealership up the road.) From what I hear, the place is always mobbed too. I want to know what dish is so amazing that people are willing to endure such obstacles. My chicken tacos cannot possibly be that dish.
4. Why does the northern part of New Hampshire have to receive 10"+ of snow on Sunday night, the longest possible time before I can go enjoy it? I guess it's just a present for the locals that tend to the slopes all winter and face the harsh weather that comes with it head on. Enjoy, White Mountainers.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Budweiser Brewery Tour
There are only four Anheuser Busch breweries in America that give free tours. Happily, one is located in Merrimack, NH. I was able to partake in a tour yesterday. It turned out to be a nice activity for a cold February Saturday and of course involved free beer so I am fully endorsing it.
Before the tour begins, there are a couple of things to pass the time. One is a visit to the gift shop that includes many specialty Budweiser items. I will definitely making a return visit there before Christmas rolls around again. Also, A small museum occupies the waiting area. One could learn quite a bit about the history of Anheuser Busch just from these exhibits. Our tour guide did a nice job filling in the blanks about Adolphus Busch and his rise to prominence in the beer industry. A fun fact about Budweiser: It doesn't mean anything. Adolphus Busch chose "Budweiser" because it sounded German and was easy to say.
The actual tour takes you through the brew house and give a view of the bottling process. It was mostly impressive for the amount of beer that is produced there. Something like 5 kajillion
gallons a second I think. You could tell that most of us were just waiting for our free beers. Our tour guide could absolutely tell and even she seemed relieved once the beers were finally poured. The bar area was very nice.Given the proximity to my house, I would probably visit this bar as a paying customer fairly regularly. Alas, I don't believe this is a service they provide so I'll have to settle for two free beers every time I decide to endure the guided tour. Next time I'm just going to get two Budweisers though because how does it get better really?
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
5 Up, 1 Down: Cannon Mountain
At gunpoint, I would absolutely name Cannon Mountain as my favorite ski destination. Having visited there only three days ago here are five things that have Cannon up in my mind.
1. Fantastic Views: I can totally see why people pay money to ride up the tram in the summer just to enjoy the summit and its views. To the west you get a great look at the Mt Lafayette-Franconia Ridge. Past that you can really take in the Presidentials. And to the north you can see for what seems like forever. And all the while, the view of the valley between Cannon and Mittersill is outstanding.
2. Steep Terrain: Cannon is one of the few mountains that I get to ski that has some nice challenging steeps that really make me work for it. I like to be forced to turn when I ski. I also enjoy the two trails from the summit that wind their way to the middle of the mountain. Those are really a blast.
3. Hiking to Mittersill: I didn't have the pleasure to experience this on Valentine's Day, but I have a few times in the past ventured out of bounds and made the short hike up to the trail that leads to the old Mittersill resort. It's really neat to ski down the narrow trail to the top of the old lift. You need a lot natural snow to support this and make sure you stay to the right after the lift to get back to main base area or else you have a good hike back ahead of you.
4. The Lodge is cool: The last two times I've visited Cannon, there's been a band performing at the bar starting around 3 PM. The outside tables and deck are very nice if the temperature is anything above 30 degrees. There's a bubbler to drink from so you don't have to shell out 3 bucks for a cup of water. There's even another place to eat downstairs that I just discovered where there is no frowning upon brown-bagging it. And best, you walk about 20 feet from the door to board the High Speed Detachable Quad.
5. It's not that far away: Cannon is closer to me in Nashua (and to Boston) than Killington, Wildcat, Sunday River and Mount Snow. I've been to all those places and I would put a day at Cannon up against a day at any of those places. Plus, Cannon is within 20 minutes of Bretton Woods, Loon (yuck) and Waterville if you did want to do a multi day trip.
There's not much to pick nits about when it comes to the skiing at Cannon Mountain. There is one thing though.
1. The trail map lists quite a few glades trails. Problem is, they are rarely open. I don't know if Cannon just doesn't receive the natural snow required for glade skiing, but I do know that Ragged, Tenney and Gunstock all have glade trails that I have skied this year. Cannon, get some more natural skiing so I don't have to keep hiking over to Mittersill.
1. Fantastic Views: I can totally see why people pay money to ride up the tram in the summer just to enjoy the summit and its views. To the west you get a great look at the Mt Lafayette-Franconia Ridge. Past that you can really take in the Presidentials. And to the north you can see for what seems like forever. And all the while, the view of the valley between Cannon and Mittersill is outstanding.
2. Steep Terrain: Cannon is one of the few mountains that I get to ski that has some nice challenging steeps that really make me work for it. I like to be forced to turn when I ski. I also enjoy the two trails from the summit that wind their way to the middle of the mountain. Those are really a blast.
3. Hiking to Mittersill: I didn't have the pleasure to experience this on Valentine's Day, but I have a few times in the past ventured out of bounds and made the short hike up to the trail that leads to the old Mittersill resort. It's really neat to ski down the narrow trail to the top of the old lift. You need a lot natural snow to support this and make sure you stay to the right after the lift to get back to main base area or else you have a good hike back ahead of you.
4. The Lodge is cool: The last two times I've visited Cannon, there's been a band performing at the bar starting around 3 PM. The outside tables and deck are very nice if the temperature is anything above 30 degrees. There's a bubbler to drink from so you don't have to shell out 3 bucks for a cup of water. There's even another place to eat downstairs that I just discovered where there is no frowning upon brown-bagging it. And best, you walk about 20 feet from the door to board the High Speed Detachable Quad.
5. It's not that far away: Cannon is closer to me in Nashua (and to Boston) than Killington, Wildcat, Sunday River and Mount Snow. I've been to all those places and I would put a day at Cannon up against a day at any of those places. Plus, Cannon is within 20 minutes of Bretton Woods, Loon (yuck) and Waterville if you did want to do a multi day trip.
There's not much to pick nits about when it comes to the skiing at Cannon Mountain. There is one thing though.
1. The trail map lists quite a few glades trails. Problem is, they are rarely open. I don't know if Cannon just doesn't receive the natural snow required for glade skiing, but I do know that Ragged, Tenney and Gunstock all have glade trails that I have skied this year. Cannon, get some more natural skiing so I don't have to keep hiking over to Mittersill.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Indian Head Resort
I visited Indian Head Resort in Lincoln, NH twice a youngster, so imagine my delight when I found out my girlfriend's Mom is good friends with the owner. Lucky me. Anyway, we went up there on Friday night to enjoy the pool and bar areas before heading to Cannon Mountain on Saturday. After sitting in the hot tub for as long as we could stand it, we headed to the bar around 10 PM. It consisted of a small bar area and about 5 or 6 large tables. One of the tables had an Uno game going on. Another was hosting a fairly large group of skiers from England we were told by our bartender. Multiple high def televisions were showing us the old man tennis NESN has been broadcasting (show more NHL Classic if you need programming). Our bartender was very helpful in letting us know the conditions at the area mountains. We were already thinking of going to Cannon, but Bretton Woods remained a possibility. She assured us were correct in the first place. Things got interesting when a 30ish woman rolled in after falling off her snowmobile. She joined us and the hockey Dads that were apparently having a couple pops after coaching their kids in a tournament. She had a large scrape on her arm that we saw and one on her ass that we only heard about. She proceeded to tell Mary, my girlfriend, practically her entire life story. I was ready to pull a Jim Carrey from Dumb and Dumber on her. "I don't know and I don't care...bartender!" Her DB boyfriend showed up about 20 minutes later looking not very concerned. She asked us if we thought we was cute. I jokingly said I did and he wasn't even the least bit amused, you know, since he was a DB. After ignoring them for a while and talking about the channel 7 news that Mary and the bartender shared a similar love of, the woman started getting much too drunk. She dropped something on the floor, possibly a shot glass, I didn't much care, then the next thing we knew, her barstool fell over almost taking her with it except the bartender saw and got her DB BF to grab her in time. They saw this as a sign to retreat to their own hotel. The bartender suggested they didn't drive their "sleds" back, which made sense especially because Indian Head had no problem with them leaving them there, but they shook off this thought and went ahead and tried anyway. The bartender went to watch and came back with a tale of her getting stuck in the middle of the road. I can only assume that she was fine though, save the raging hangover she must have faced upon waking on Saturday. I know snowmobiling is a large part of the winter recreation in New Hampshire, but I just don't understand it. First off, stop calling them sleds. That was cool for about 6 months back in 2000. I think I will refer to them as skimobiles from now on because that's about the last thing a real skimobiler would call them. Second, skimobiling seems like a very cold activity. You're flying around at 50 mph, not really doing any work. I don't know how you warm up. I guess most skimobilers just drink. Which brings me to the third thing about it, very dangerous. Doesn't it seem like people die skimobiling all the time? Call me a pussy if you want to. I would much rather destroy my knee skiing than get paralyzed skimobiling.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
