As we wait for the leaves to finish turning color here in New Hampshire we decided to take a little road trip to the east coast of the state. It wasn't a long distance from our campsite to the coast, but the roads along the way were winding and narrow.
Before we left the campsite we decided to visit the town of Portsmouth and then travel down the coast to Hampton, New Hampshire. I fed the information into the GPS and we headed off on our trip. As we were traveling it seems like we were spending a lot of time in Maine, and we wondered when we would eventually turn into New Hampshire. After about 90 minutes of driving we realized I had entered the location of a lighthouse near Portland Maine rather them Portsmouth. Once we entered the correction it became obvious that our trip was going to be significantly longer than planned, so we decided to head directly to the Hampton area, specifically Hampton Beach.
The Hampton Beach area was quite surprising to us, and fortunately we were there in low season and there were very few people to be seen. I can only imagine what kind of a crazy place it would be in the summer. It seemed there was numerous hotels and drinking establishments lining the boardwalk. As you got further back from the boardwalk there were numerous cabins all tightly packed onto narrow streets. As we look closer we realized that the cabins on the street also had small cabins in behind that were accessible by small laneways past the front cabin. In essence it made each block about 4 residences deep, a row of cabins lining the street on each side and a row of cabins in behind.
We noticed one hotel that was four stories high and on each level there was a bar facing out onto the ocean, along with a fifth one on the roof.
As we drove the neighborhood further from the oceanfront, the homes got bigger and the lots got much bigger as well. Obviously this was a very well-to-do area.
Our drive home back to our campsite was much faster as we drove much of the way on the interstate highways. However we did lose a bit of time as Google Maps followed our instructions and took us around toll highways. Some of these side roads are fairly narrow and only two lanes. I'm not sure what the toll charges were, but I wonder how much the average commuter spends in this area traveling to and from work. It seems there are toll roads everywhere.
