Prescott Park, Portsmouth, NH
13 September 2026
It's August 29, the day we check out and drive to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I'm in a full-on packing panic and I can't get the screen to fit back into the window.
I vent my angst at breakfast. There's a pile of bags on Jeff's bed. How did we get this all to fit? Jeff reassures me that we'll get it all in.
He loads his bags onto a luggage cart while I bring down the bikes. Somehow, we do get everything to fit, although I can't see as clearly out of the rear window as I could on our drive up.
When we check out, I sheepishly confess my window screen sin. "I wanted pictures of the sunrise."
"Yeah," the receptionist says, "Those are tough. It takes two people to do it. They have to bend it." But she doesn't chastize me or charge us for the trouble.
I need some time by the water to decompress.
I walk back to the Inn slowly.
There's a monarch, first on a zinnia, then on a dahlia.
Heddy wants to buy fresh Maine blueberries somewhere on the way to Portsmouth. I suggest we take Route 1. It's slower, more scenic, and stands a better chance of having a farm stand somewhere.
We pull out of the parking lot ahead of Heddy and Ginger. They're somewhere behind us on Route 3 when we see a blueberry stand. It's close to where we have to turn off to take Route 1. Jeff hastily texts while I turn into the parking lot of a shoe store. The stand is empty. I turn around. He texts that it's empty.
Now there's traffic, and I'm in the wrong lane to turn. Waze reroutes me. I assume it's going to get me back to Route 1. I've done the scenic drive and the highway drive. Now I realize that I'm not being turned around after all; I'm en route to the highway. "Text them again," I tell Jeff, trying to explain in as few words as possible that I'm an idiot. Again.
We stop for a break on the highway at the Gardiner service plaza, where a bin full of toys advertizes a moose on a leash. There are no mooses on any leashes in the bin.
Our destination isn't Portsmouth directly. It's Scarborough, to Len Libby Candies (home of the
life-size chocolate moose!) for more chocolate blueberries and double-dipped chocolate pretzels. We arrive 15 minutes before Heddy and Ginger do, which ends up being time enough for Jeff and me to get down on our knees in the parking lot to search for a tiny gasket that just popped off of Jeff's bike's cable. It's not a crucial part; it keeps dirt out of the frame. We can't find it.
Heddy, meanwhile, has struck out on her Maine blueberry search. They'd stopped at a farm stand and been directed to a natural food store, which ended up having only berries imported from California. We're too late in the season for the real thing.
All five of us cruise around the candy store. I buy a load of double-dipped chocolate pretzels, more blue white chocolate blueberries, Bangor taffy (small, sugar-dusted caramels), and a few other things.
We're looking for a cheap lunch somewhere and wind up down the road at a sandwich shop that's half an hour to closing. They're out of a lot. We find enough to get ourselves through until dinner. Now it's about an hour to Portsmouth. We'll meet up when we get to the hotel, because Princess needs her coffee first.
The hotel is a motel just off the highway. It looked better in the photos. Our room is around the back. The receptionist assures us that our bikes will be safe locked on the car. I try to back in. Jeff hollers and I stop. I'd tapped a wooden post and the rack's outer tray had bent inwards by a few degrees. It's not damaged, though. Fortunately, the bolt was loose enough that there was some give. I move the rack back to straight, tighten the bolt, and we're good to go. These 1Up racks are sturdy things!
The car is conveniently across from our room's window and a glaring flood light. Heddy and Ginger have a room in front, so they've taken their bikes inside.
We meet in the lobby. Someone has a cartoon map of downtown and we make plans. Jack wants to get to a bookshop. The rest of us will wander around.
I've only been to Portsmouth once before, for one night. I remember it being crowded with young people at night and dead the next morning.
Jack summons an Uber. The driver is chatty, and English. I notice a phone box. He notices that I said phone box. He tells a story that might not be true: that a friend of his learned that a phone box cannot be taken down if there are 35 calls made from it in a year, so his friend traveled from the south to the north of England to make the calls from that box.
The driver unloads us in front of the book store. Jack has found a tapas restaurant that will take reservations. Someone sees the rest of us looking lost and tells us to go over to Prescott Park. "The flowers are amazing!" she says.
The park is within sight, down by the water. We're not sure what the woman meant by amazing flowers. There's an arts festival going on, but all we see is a kiosk and a playground.
Then we walk past a balloon artist who has a balloon flower bouncing from his bag. Is this what she meant?
We walk towards the water.
There's a Navy yard across the river. I check the map on my phone. The river is the Piscataqua, which means that the base is in Maine.
There are wildflower plantings along the fence.
There are more curated plantings farther along.
We find a garden. This must have been what the woman meant.
Back where we started, there is a giant Lego board for kids to play with.
Jack has texted that the tapas place is a no-go at $60 per person, prix fixe. He's found a suitable pizza place in the middle of town instead.
We start up towards the town center, stopping to look at the water again from what must be ridiculously expensive real estate.
We wander down to another wharf, where there are touristy shops and a line of tugboats.
I stick my head into a store that has an entire wall of rubber ducks (I once had a collection).
And a stuffed moose head (I have one already).
As Jeff and I wait for Heddy and Ginger (Heddy has found a plaque for her bathroom with a cat on it and wording about saving water by using your tongue), I mention how I'd noticed last time that Portsmouth seems full of young people. He reminds me that we're old. Point taken. But not that old!
As we approach Market Square, we happen upon a weird little car, barely big enough for two people, with a front door where the steering mechanism is somehow reattached when the door is closed. It's a
1958 Isetta. How this thing is even road safe is beyond me. The tiny space behind the seats is filled with luggage, as is a rack off the back.
Outside the restaurant on Market Square, a man in a bike helmet is working three versions of a Rubik's Cube. I chat with him brielfly. I had an original when I was a kid. I'd learned, through group-think in school, how to solve it. The fellow is amazed that I'd been able to do that. I shrug.
I wouldn't know where to begin now, much less on this one:
We get a table outside. It's a perfect spot for people-watching. There are lots of motorcycles cruising; this is apparently a thing in Portsmouth. Jeff and Heddy are car-watching too. A Corvair is parked near us. Ginger says she used to have one. I try to ask if the name Corvair is somehow linked to the name Corvette, but nobody seems to understand what I'm asking. (I just looked it up.
They are related.)
Then the Isetta pootles up the road. "There's no way they're driving that thing on the highway," I say.
I ask for a container for the leftover pizza. We can eat it on the road tomorrow. The server comes back, saying, "I got two things of foil." Jack is amused by her use of "thing." We've been talking about words and dictionaries all evening.
We find one last cup of ice cream, then get an Uber back to the hotel. This driver is chatty too. He tells us that the current regime has destroyed tourism. "There should be so much traffic we wouldn't be moving right now," he says. "That jazz club would be packed." It looks empty. He's lived in Portland too. We talk about the similarities and differences. He has Blow Pops in a tray between the front and back seats. I take a couple to add to our candy mountain.
The consensus is for an early start tomorrow morning. "How early?" I ask.
"8:00?" I groan an acceptance. "Let's get the car packed before breakfast this time?"
The flood light blasts through the frosted bathroom window. There's no window shade. I try to close the swinging bathroom doors. Light pours in around the edges of the shade across from the bed. I can't sleep. I keep checking the bikes. I toss and turn all night.
Breakfast in this place looks inedible. I've got my last protein bar and a travel mug of cold brew that I've been saving since Bar Harbor. The only table that seats four people is taken by two loud men who are eating the greasy meat pucks and slimy egg discs as if they'd been without food for a week. Jack, at least, finds cereal.
We hit the road, and the guys fall asleep. I listen to music quietly. The guys wake up occasionally.
It's around 11:00 when Jeff pries open a bag of caramel popcorn he bought at Len Libby. He offers it to me and Jack. I refuse for the moment, while he and Jack decide that the stuff is crack. Eventually I cave in.
Somewhere in Connecticut, I see a dark Mercedes behind me. "Is that them?" I ask. "Text them?" Jeff sighs and groans and I say, "Never mind. Never mind." It's not them anyway.
By now, the bag of crack is long empty.
Waze is sending us over the Bridge Formerly Known as Tappan Zee. Jeff has never seen this Mario Cuomo Bridge and its extensive, wide walkway. This being Sunday, there are a lot of bikers tackling the long inclines on the western side of the Hudson River.
It's early afternoon when we reach the first rest area of the NJ Turnpike. We park the car and find a table outside. I text Ginger to let her know where we are. They're here too, looking for food inside. They'd taken the George Washington Bridge to get here. Jeff and I finish the leftover pizza. Jack has a bagel with peanut butter that he'd put together at the hotel.
Leaving the rest stop, I try to stay behind Heddy, but she's driving too fast for my comfort, given that I can't entirely see out of my rear window. I slide back over to the middle lane. A highway patrol car comes into view, driving my speed.
We get home around 4:00. "My car's still there!" Jeff says. He backs it out and I pull in. We unload the bikes and I take the rack off. Jack is in the garage with his reserve pile of Hardly Harmless Drudgery. He's writing personal messages for Jeff, Ginger, and Heddy in three of the books. When Jeff is ready to go, I hand them off to him. He has to go to Heddy's anyway, to pick up his towels.
Jeff drives away. I go inside to greet the cats.
No comments:
Post a Comment