Day 8: Sunday February 28, 2021
I was awake early. I finished packing and started hauling trash and recycling out to the dumpster on the other side of the parking lot. The joys of staying on a timeshare reservation. The parking lot was crazy slippery from the previous day’s combination of snow and freezing rain, so I made the decision that the only contact my husband who tends to not stay upright on ice would have with the parking lot that morning would be to get in the car to leave.
Nick woke up surprisingly early and finished his packing. Once that was done, I started hauling stuff to the car while he stripped the beds and rounded up the last of the trash. Once the car was loaded, I did the final walkthrough and found that while he had done a very good job, he had forgotten to take the fitted sheet off the upstairs bed. Clearly he needs more practice and should take over the job of changing the bed at home!!
Once Nick and all our stuff were safely in the car I walked over to the main building and handed over our keys to the front desk. We were on the road south just about 9:00. It was 40* and I spent the first hour of the drive watching the temperature gauge like a hawk, to make sure we’d be ok with the potential for black ice on the roads. Thankfully, the temperature stayed stable and the drive was fine. We made a stop at the Country Store that is now at the Tilton outlets (awesome store), and the grocery store, and then made it home.
We got home to a 42* house. Considering we just had the furnace fixed this fall, we were not happy. Thankfully, turning off the thermostat and turning it back on was sufficient to get the furnace up and running again. I’m horrified to think about how much propane was required to heat the house from 42 to 65 but...at least we didn’t have to call for a furnace fix!
Final thoughts:
Well...it wasn’t my dream February vacation, but it was wonderful to get away and actually have time to communicate with Nick on a level beyond “what’s for dinner tonight”. We did lots of fun things and ate a lot of fantastic food. It also was wonderful to have a break from Google Meet. Oh...and long showers were great too. So grateful that we were able to get away!
Eastern Slope Inn is super convenient for walking around town, but parking is an absolute nightmare, and because of the traffic around there, it’s a nightmare parking lot to get out of too. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the resort itself, but I’m not really in a hurry to stay there again.
NH has worked hard to find a balance that allows businesses to operate and still exercise a level of caution, and as a result we have maintained the same level of openness since summer. The vast majority of businesses (restaurants especially) that I’ve been into, statewide, have met or exceeded the current state guidelines. The restaurants in the North Conway area were no exception. In fact, I found virtually all of the restaurants we ate at to be exceeding the state guidelines. I’ve also worked hard to find a balance throughout all of this, so my tolerance level is higher than some, but there was not a single point in our week where I found myself feeling uncomfortable in a business. There is not a question in my mind how the Mount Washington Valley’s case numbers have stayed relatively low throughout this Covid nightmare, despite the constant influx of out of staters and the fact that our businesses are open.
Best thing I brought with me for this vacation? A pair of slippers. At home I wear them because we have a crawl space under our house, rather than a basement, meaning our floors are ridiculously cold if the outside air temperature is below 60. On this vacation, they were key because of all of the road salt being tracked in. That stuff hurts bare feet.
We are tentatively booked for an April vacation that involves palm trees. I’m cautiously excited!
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