Man Made Fun

When we first moved to New England, we came with no biases. New England was New England, we thought. However, the longer we have lived here the more we have come to understand the different cultures in the different regions. We saw first hand how the culture changed from charming Vermont to fairly kitschy New Hampshire as soon as we crossed over the New Hampshire line on our way home from our spring break in Vermont. New Hampshire is definitely beautiful. It has, of course Lake Winnipesaukee and Squam Lake where On Golden Pond was filmed. Families send their children for the summer to camps tucked in the New Hampshire mountains, where they experience nature at its finest. However, if you open a travel book, New Hampshire is overloaded with places like Santa Land and Water World, which to me evoke images of huge sweaty crowds, places I generally avoid. However, with a family of six children, there is certainly a place for some good time spent in New Hampshire. We took the long way home and looped through the Granite State. We happened to pass by the most interesting little sugar shack. I drove right past it and then, out of curiosity, backed up and parked the car. No one was inside their little shop, but the most inviting sign was left for customers. I picked up the creamiest maple sugar candies and passed them around the car for everyone to share. This stop was actually just over the New Hampshire border, so it still had the same quaintness that we fell in love with in Vermont.

Our first planned stop of the day was the Polar Caves, which consisted of a maze of eight caves in the side of a granite mountain. We squeezed through such crevices as the Lemon Squeeze, the Needle's Eye, Orange Crush and Fat Man's Misery. Supposedly the underground railroad used the caves as a hideout and Native Americans stashed their supplies, women and children in the side of this mountain.

At the end of their spelunking, the kids mined for treasures. They were each given a bag of gems that they dumped into pans and then sloshed around in the water, separating the good stones from the bad. This was a true highlight for the kids. There definitely is a place in my children's hearts for man made fun.

Continuing on with this theme, we headed to Lake Winnipesaukee. I know that there are gorgeous villages along the lake, but we ended up on Weirs Beach, known for it's cheep thrills in the form of miniature golf parks, bumper cars and arcades.

With a little research, I was able to locate the second largest arcade in the country, right on the banks of this grand lake. We pulled up to Funspot, ready for pizza and loads of fun. I had always heard of candlestick bowling, a sport unique to New England, and we found that this was the day to try it. We turned in our tennis shoes for bowling shoes and entered our score card. In candlestick bowling the pins are shaped like candles and you throw six small balls per turn, one right after another. We all decided that each form of bowling is equally fun, but candlestick bowling moved faster.

After enjoying pizza and rootbeer, we unfortunately had to leave the video games for the next time we were at Funspot. Jonathan had his first baseball practice of the season back in Sudbury in just a few hours. Jerseys were to be handed out and our mission was to get Jonathan home so that he could choose his coveted number for the season.