We had a beautiful drive up to The White Mountains Friday afternoon, pizza and wine for dinner, and way too much backgammon. Great fun, and very relaxing after the 2 hour trip up. Sue had done some research and had found a lovely little cabin in the Nordic Village complex that was just perfect for our needs. It even had a glass front wood stove that we took advantage of.

Saturday, we drove up to Bretton Woods to the Mount Washington Hotel for the snow kite festival. Sue had always wanted to see what this was all about, and I was intrigued. The drive along Rt 302 was just spectacular - going both directions. We got up there around 10:00am and left after a couple of hours. It just was not organized very well and there were just a handful of participants, with no observable 'festival' type components. It was interesting to watch a company run their dog sled teams around the property - but that was a pretty expensive deal at something like $90 for a 20 minute ride.

By the time we left the festival, it was getting into early afternoon. Since we had just had a muffin and coffee on the ride up, we stopped in at Fabyans Station Restaurant. It was converted from one of the original railroad stations that visitors to Crawford Notch stopped at into a restaurant and lounge.

We got back to the cabin around 2:00pm and after a quick rest we played some backgammon before heading out to the 1785 Inn for a wonderful meal. As always, Alan waited on us and Charles Mallor, the owner, chatted with us several times.

Sunday morning after cleaning up the cabin, we stopped in at the Glen Junction Restaurant in Intervale for breakfast. This is a train-themed restaurant that has a large scale wood fired steam replica train running around the restaurant's walls; a really interesting spot. And a pretty nice breakfast as well.

After finishing breakfast, we drove to White Lake State Park and Sue took a walk down to the beach area. The parking lot was packed with dozens of trucks towing trailers for snow mobiles, and the buzz of their motors filled the air. I stayed in the car while Sue walked as I was having back pains from a strained muscle and didn't want to push it.

From there, we drove down to Tamworth, NH to Sue's mom's house. She had a couple of old bicycles, an antique clothes washer, and a collection of metal toy trucks that Sue wanted to get pictures of. We all jumped into my car and had a marvelous drive up the back roads to Sandwich, NH; just a spectacularly pretty winter scenic drive through rural New England.

We got home around 3:00pm, and went food shopping after getting a list together. When we got back, I lit a fire in the fireplace, and we played some backgammon before dinner. And we closed out the night with the marvelous 1993 movie Sleepless In Seattle.