MyVacation (3)

So, here we are. I am sitting in the back of a Ford Expedition rolling down highway 28 through the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The air is clean, dry, and cool. There is not a cloud in the sky as the breeze whips the smell of pine and honeysuckle through the air. It's exactly what I envisioned. Red barns and white picket fences, small general stores and unspoiled wilderness. It's beautiful, it's perfect. I haven't even exited the carm and I already feel refreshed. I sign just wizzed by that read "scenic view", which just seems so redundant, since, well, compared to the sprawling suburbs of Washington DC, everything is scenic. i cannot even begin to imagine what it must be like to live up here... to wake up every morning and see nothing but mountains and woods and lakes. Soon, we will be in Wolfeboro, our destination, where we will stay on the shores of Lake Winnepesaukee which, at least according to my dad, it crystal clear... I have never seen a crystal clear lake in my life, and I cannot wait. This is a vacation of firsts... the first trip to Connecticut (where we had an awesome dinner with my friend Julia Varona in Danbury), first trip to Massachusettes, Maine, and Rhode Island (Lunch in Kennebunkport and college visit in Boston on Thursday), and, of course, first trip to New Hampshire which, already, has provided me with the first time the air has smelled consistently like flowers... amazing.

As we drive on and catch a view the lake for the first time, I look forward into the rear view mirror and see my Dad's eyes squint into an obvious smile. Welcome to New Hampshire, the land of sweet smelling air (I still can't get over it), old rustic houses, white picket fences, eternal sunshine and 80 degree weather, quaint hosptals (i.e. Huggins hospital), and an open, free feeling in a small town. A place devoid of cookie cutter developments and strip malls, where walking and golf carts overpower cars, where rush hour happens at 1:30pm, where seeing another car from Virginia is an exciting event, where a Verizon store sticks out like a sore thumb, where American flags line buildings instead of Confederate flags, and where they fly in pride rather than protest, where the view will take your breath away, and where the water TRULY IS crystal clear. Welcome to Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. I might not leave.