And aren't you lucky? You get to look at the pictures of my little get away! Actually, I didn't take that many photos (lucky!). At times I concentrated on video tape, and at others it was raining too hard to pull a camera out. Yes, it was a good drizel for much of the three days, although the heaviest downpours did hold off until evening. Sadly, the spectacular views of the New Hampshire mountains that we should have been treated to were covered up by heavy clouds during our entire stay. What we did see, my daughter thought looked like dinosaurs. I can understand.

I must say, Story Land wound up being much better than I thought it would be. Their web site is pretty amateurish and unreliable and that gave me a sort of negative impression, but that was wrong. I give the place high marks for those with small children. It was well kept-up and much larger than I expected. It was about a three-hour drive on the first day (Wednesday), and straight to the park for five hours of walking around and going on the rides. There was still more to see when the park closed, but we had had enough. My daughter (almost 4) finally got her wish. She'd been walking around with the brochure and looking at the pictures and saying, "I want to ride that one, too, Daddy." Constantly. Especially after she found out we were actually going. Even on the car ride she was staring at the brochure the entire trip. It was great to see her reaction when we arrived and she saw the place, eyes wide - "That's Story Land, Daddy!"

There's a picture of a little kid eating a hotdog in the brochure, and she's been telling me, "I want to eat a hot dog, too, Daddy."

Finally:

Note to self: Remember to close the sunroof when you lock up the car. It was mostly a decent day, but there was a downpour that had us running for cover, and I discovered that I had forgotten to close the sunroof in the new CR-V when we got back to the car. Ooops. I was paying for that with a damp butt for the next two days. No real damage, though.

There was an incredible thunderstorm that evening that put out the power in the inn and the surrounding town, so that made our dinner late. A long day for parents and especially child.

Thursday we hit the road. We headed for the Flume Gorge, which we walked. We also stopped at various rest stops and sites of interest along the way. There are lots.

Streams like this come straight off the mountain. Tastes great if you have a canteen:

Yup, it's a rock:

Very scary:

Yes, even little girls like trains:

Finally, yesterday we took a six or seven mile canoe ride on the Saco River. No pictures or video of that as it was drizeling through the entire trip. Not too bad, but bad enough that I didn't want to take the cameras out of the their plastic baggies.

Well, there it is! Back to the blog!

Update:

Apparently, Story Land made quite an impression. On my return home from the office, I was introduced to this rendering of Story Land in wood:

That's Cinderella's Castle on the right.