My month in New Hampshire

My take on New Hampshire

One of the things I'd been curious about before I came was whether New Hampshirites are different enough from Vermonters to justify the split in the states.  The answer is, they are.  And sometimes they say so.

The first person I met was the person at the New Hampshire Welcome Center, who told me he was originally from Vermont but had moved here years ago and liked it much better.  He said New Hampshire was a lot less rigid than Vermont.  Since I'd concluded Vermont was thoroughly laid back, I wondered how that could be possible.  A month later, I still don't see it.

It's true New Hampshire has slightly looser liquor laws than Vermont, though not by much.  And it's true New Hampshire doesn't have a sales tax.  But I didn't see that goods and services were particularly cheaper here, they just don't have sales tax tacked on top.

They have a yield-to-pedestrians-in-crosswalks law here, but they aren't as serious about it here as in Vermont.  Maybe that's an example of being less rigid but, given the alternative, I'd rather have the rigidity.

Something odd I noticed is that people aren't quite as nice here, or as friendly - even those in tourist-related businesses.  Here they're a little more like New Yorkers - the New Yorkers outside the City, of course, since I never went to the City.  Friendly enough but - I don't know, maybe not as welcoming?  Can't quite put my finger on it but I've definitely been feeling it.

On the other hand, New Hampshirites love their state.  I spoke with only one person who said she'd rather be living somewhere else; everybody else was as emphatic as the lady in Randolph.  They love living where they do.  They love the rural area, the small town atmosphere, the scenery, the mountains.  These are the answers I've gotten over and over from all ages of people.  There was the guy in Nashua who said if I only had a month, what was I doing down there, I should get up to the mountains.  He wasn't in love with Nashua, obviously, but he was clearly in love with his state.

They see their state as being special, individual, and they see themselves that way too.  Nobody volunteered to me that there was anything they didn't like about New Hampshire.  Oddly, though, I had trouble getting people to talk to me.  They decided they were too busy, or didn't look me in the eye but instead treated me impersonally as a customer to move along.  It's that kind of thing that makes me think people here aren't as friendly as in other places.

They certainly have a lot of beauty in New Hampshire, but I'm not sure how eager I am to come back.  I absolutely didn't expect to find so much of a difference between the two states.

What I missed that I wanted to see

I would have liked to see the place at Bretton Woods where the IMF and World Bank were created in 1944.  The building looks gorgeous and it's hard to beat the history.

Conway Scenic Railroad still runs trips, but they last for hours and I couldn't leave the critters that long.  Ditto for the Mt. Washington Cog Railway.  There are a lot of train museums and scenic rides in NH, but it's clear the railroad isn't nearly as much a part of the fabric of the state as in Pennsylvania.

I missed the West Branch Pine Barrens, owned by the Nature Conservancy, back in the neighborhood of the Madison Boulder.  Actually, I didn't see that on my list until just right now or I'd have gone looking for them as we apparently passed right by them.

When I was down at the seacoast, I forgot that Hampton is the home of the Timberland boot factory; I'd intended to check it out and maybe get a decent pair of boots for the fall and winter.  Looks like LL Bean will have to do, next month.

Both Wilton and Derry in the far southern part of the state, have mills: the Taylor Up & Down Sawmill, which has a unique way of cutting wood, is in Derry; Frye's Measure Mill, in Wilton, still operates.  Having seen the museum for the fabric mills in Manchester, which I found fascinating, I'm sure the real thing is much more interesting.  You know - a live horse is more interesting than a museum about one.

I was lucky that New Hampshire is such a small state, because I managed to get to most of what I wanted to see, despite the heat wave for the first 6 days of the month - which people are still talking about, which gives you an idea.