Hanover Inn

It's Labor Day weekend. It's the last gasp of summer, right before the whirlwind starts with back to school and product launches and whatever else the coming year will throw at us.

So we decided at the last minute to blow out of town and go on a roadtrip. Bob was in NYC all week and while waiting for his flight home, he booked us on a trip up to Montreal with a stop in Hanover, New Hampshire. An hour after he was back from the airport, we were on the road.

20 years ago, on another spur of the moment roadtrip, Bob and I were driving around late one night headed up to New Hampshire or Vermont for the weekend. OK, we weren't too focused on the destination. It was snowy and freezing and we couldn't find a place to stay. We ended up in Hanover which is on the border of New Hampshire and Vermont. It's the home of Dartmouth College. The streets were empty it was probably around 10:00pm. I was hungry, tired and teary.

Bob, with his usual aplomb, looked around, spied The Hanover Inn and pulled up to the door. It looked so quaint and warm and cozy through the colonial windows. We were blowing our budget, but we were so thankful - they had a room and the restaurant was still open.



We were the last ones served that night I'm sure. And I think they held the best for last. We had a meal we have talked about ever since. The highlight? Lobster Canneloni. Home made canneloni, velvety white sauce, chuncks of tender lobsta. Melt in your mouth goodness. We were almost giddy with happiness. We went from cold and icy and desolate to the sublime. Ahhh.

That night we slept in a high four-poster bed George Washington had once slept in. The whole room was flowers. Flowered bedspread and flocked walls. The quad of Dartmouth across the street. You don't get more New England than that.

So when Bob asked me to guess where he had booked for us to stay on our way to Montreal...I knew right away. It was the Hanover Inn.

This time, we have a flocked and flowery room overlooking the main street. There are two double beds and our well-on-their-way to being grown kids are dozing in them as I write this.

Bob and I went for a walk early this morning. The fog was burning off. The town was coming alive. Academics and Dartmouth sports students and coaches were up, arriving on campus a few weeks early. We joked that maybe we'd see Bill Bryson, one of our favorite authors, who lives here.

We popped into the Dirt Cowboy Cafe where they brew each cup of coffee individually and play quiet folky bluegrass. At the table next to us three guys in Dartmouth Soccer jackets were planning out their strategy. They actually had pads of paper with a soccer field printed on each page and they were drawing on them. We had no idea that there was such a thing.

And guess who was sitting at the counter in the window? Bill Bryson.

Well it's a perfect, blue sky, no humidity, late summer day. We succeeded in raising the kids so they have the same passion we do for traveling and exploring and trying new things and new food. So we travel really well together. And today we've got no plans besides ending up in Montreal tonight. Life is good.