Aug 1, 2007

Photos of New Hampshire

I just returned from a vacation to Colorado (4 days) and New Hampshire (7 days). I figured I'll post the photos in order of most recent to earlier, so they'll show up in correct order to anyone who scrolls down my blog. So here's the "last" installment!

welcome to Bedford

Above: I grew up in a historic district of a New England town. I always found the thick woods to be creepy. In summer, it's a bug-filled jungle. In winter, it's a Robert Frost poem.

Below: High noon in New Hampshire during a thunderstorm. It doesn't get very bright even during the rare cloudless days, because the trees block out the sunlight.

July thunderstorm

Ah, the old view out my bedroom window. I grew up with this view. No matter what time of year, it was always gloomy, because the overhang of the roof and the trees blocked out the light.

bedroom view

I like to try to describe New England to Californians, because it's such an alien place to anyone who grew up in the western states. This is a typical road in New Hampshire. They're hilly, winding, in poor repair, overgrown with trees and other plants, with many blind turns and hidden houses. You never know what's around the bend. You can't see it until you get there. Very often, street signs and even STOP signs are obscured by plant growth during the summer months.

road in NH

Here's an oak tree that serves as a landmark for many locals. In California, the trees are fewer but older, whereas in New England, trees grow like weeds and are mostly younger than a century or two. This tree is unusual because it's more than two hundred years old.

old oak tree



One of the many things that always struck me as weird about my hometown was how much trash and litter you can find on the roadsides, despite the love of nature professed by the locals. I don't see this much litter in western states.

litter and trash

Some more typical New England scenery. This is in Manchester, New Hampshire.

churches in Manchester

And then my vacation ended, and it was time to fly back! (Don't worry, I'll post more of these vacation photos soon.) For now, here's an aerial view of New Hampshire.

New Hampshire from the air

As you might suspect, the logging and paper industries are big in northern New England. So is the export of maple syrup. Lots of tree products. The forests grow back very quickly, and logging companies tend to plant new trees in deforested areas.

clouds

Above: I got a lot of nice cloud shots from the airplane trips. More to come.

Below: Back in the West! This was approaching Las Vegas.

desert

4 comments:

Padre Cohen said...

I always thought upstate New York (where I'm from) and New England were lovely, and the West was majestic. Your photographs brought back memories from by youth. Thank you.

I also recall that Western New York was nine months of winter and three months of hell.

Anonymous said...

I never get any photos taken from the plane to come out OK!

bsleven said...

Wow Abby these photos are so great!

They make me think of all the Stephen King novels set in quiet and unassuming towns around there.


: )

ZARZUELAZEN said...

Hey Abs,

How come you keep going back to that creepy place? LOL

Your child-hood itself seemed a bit like a Stephen King novel I always thought.

Cool photos.