New Hampshire

Another beautiful day in the neighborhood today.  Lots of blue sky, white clouds, greenery, and water.

We had breakfast for lunch at Parker’s Maple Barn today.  This is a country-rustic restaurant out in the middle of nowhere.  There were at least 30 motorcycles in the dirt parking lot.  The special of the week was strawberry pancakes with real New Hampshire maple syrup.  I had the special with scrambled eggs.  Carol Ann had the breakfast special (there were a lot of specials), which included pancake, eggs, potatoes, ham, bacon, sausage, and toast.  We shared it and still had to get a “go box”. 

After our breakfast/lunch we drove to the Anheuser-Busch Brewery in Merrimack, NH to see the Clydesdales.  Carol Ann and I have toured quite a few breweries in our day and have also done a little home brewing so we weren’t terribly interested in the brewery tour.  I don’t even care for their products (although I do enjoy their Super Bowl commercials).  But we wanted to see the Clydesdales enough to take the tour and get 3 glasses of beer (which we only tasted of course).  They should be arrested for making something called a Lime-a-Rita.  It wasn’t what I would call beer and it sure didn’t measure up to a real Margarita!  I knew that AB made a lot of different beers, but I didn’t know that they also brewed Rolling Rock, Kirin, Bass Ale, Boddington’s Pub Ale, Stella Artois, Beck’s, and Goose Island Honker’s Ale.  I guess it’s true.  If you can’t beat them, buy them!

The Clydesdales were NOT included in the tour.  We could have skipped the brewery tour and gone straight to the stables to see them.  The AB Merrimack brewery is one of 3 in the US with Clydesdales and they have 22 of these huge 2,000-pound horses.

Once we had visited with the horses a while we drove over to Carol Ann’s cousin’s house for dinner with her family.  It is a beautiful country home that is over 200 years old.  They really don’t know exactly when it was built but they do have documentation someone was born in the house in 1805.