New Hampshire, a state with a great theme on their sign "Live Free or Die".

Don't you just love this  state sign?  I sure do...

As we traveled further north, towards Maine,we began to see a little more color in the leaves.

We stopped on the side of the road at a scenic spot to take a picture or two.  This is a dam producing electricity for some of the homes in New Hampshire.

Another shot of the dam.

A lot of these pictures were made going down the road from Vermont to New Hampshire.  Color is getting to be prettier.

We had discussed having lobster for days now and I guess lobster was on our mind but we all decided that this cloud looks like a lobster, what do you think?

So pretty!

The spruce are pretty too.  Would make very nice Christmas trees!

God is getting out his paint brush to do a little painting.

The scenery suddenly changed to this.

Oh, how lovely!

After getting our campsite set up, the next morning, we decided to go to the Strawbery Banke Museum, which is supposed to be really good.  We take off early and during our ride, we see a sign that reads Shaker village.  Well that was all it took.  We had always wanted to know more about the Shakers and since both of the guys love to work with wood, we quickly made a turn and off we go again in a different direction.  On our way, Pat noticed the sign above on the side of the road.  We love quilting so we wanted to see this so we went to find it.  Now this sign reads 1.4 miles, not too far, right.  so off we go.

Pop and I always love an adventure and this sure seemed to be one.  This is on a dirt road not knowing where we are going but we did have a GPS in the car.  We rode and rode and finally saw another sign like it which said .4 miles  We drove a long way, not sure how many miles we went before finally deciding we would give up.  We started to find our way back.

We ran upon a maple syrup farming again.  I know that is not what it is called, but you know what I am talking about. 

There is something different about riding down a dirt road.  It kinda gives you a sense of freedom, especially if you do not know where you are going.  I love it.

More sap farming.  The woods were so pretty in here.

Even these old mailboxes looked pretty out here.

All of a sudden we see this sign, so here we go again.  Turned onto a different road trying to find the Ole Smokehouse.

Here we were on another dirt road with some really pretty fall scenes. If you want to see the countryside, get lost on a country dirt road.

So pretty

After another sign and a turn or two and stopping to ask a guy out in his yard, we ran upon it. Nice place and they ship everywhere from way out here in the middle of nowhere, New Hampshire.

their meats looked delicious.  We bought a pound of bacon and a Moxie.  Don't worry, I had never heard of it either.  The price of the Moxie was .60 but if you like it, it is only .50.  I tried it, did not like it, but did not tell him.  Pat purchased some porkchops and bacon. Pop then asked him the way to the Shaker Village museum.  The guy told him a short cut to it and we are off again.  By this time, we had forgotten all about Strawbrry Bankes Museum

Saw this sign in front of a small house and thought, Wow, is this it?  Of course it was not.

OK this is it, Shaker Village.

These two bad boys got caught watching TV in the classroom.  This was the Shakers schoolhouse.

The yellow building on the left was the carriage house and is now a museum.  This is like a whole little town its self and actually is.  Did not need much from the outside world.  They derived from the Quakers who came here with the pilgrims and later changed their name to shakers.  It was because of some way they would shake their hands during worship ceremony during the dance.

This street is called Meeting House road because it leads to the meeting house.  Did I mention that they cannot marry, nor have children; they must remain celebate.  The way they flourished and grew in the earlier years was to take in children and raise them into the group.  At maturity age, these children were to decide if they wished to stay with the group or leave into the world.  A lot of them stayed.  As years go by, more of them made a decision to go out into the world.

This is the Meeting House.  Note the two entrance gates and two doors.  The men would enter on the north or west entrance and the woman on the south or the east door.  Inside the benches were in rows facing the center with the women sitting on the south side and men on the north.  There was no pulpit because, no preacher.  They would meet in the center and sing and dance something like the minuet, if you remember what that is. The men would line up three abreast and start marching stomping the floor loud as they marched.  The women would then follow them doing the same thing.  The stomping kept the beat. They had Elders and Eldress which consisted of the older ones.  These, men and women, had equal decision power and shared the running of the community. 

This women was taken in here after the death of her parents when she was but a small girl.  The sisters raised her. She told the story about how good the brothers and sisters were to her and trained her in the things she needed to learn.  When she was 18 years of age, she made her choice to leave the Shaker community and make her way in the world.

This was the house in which they lived.  We toured it but no pictures, lots of antiques here.

The grey house on the right was the infirmary. They occasionally had a doctor who would join the community and become one of them.  When one of their outside doctors became severly ill, they went over and attended him until his death. They were a very good people.

Corner of the meeting house.

Not having children of their own, the community eventually died out and were no more.  There are only 3 Shakers left and are now living in Maine.  They are in their older years now.  This has been a learning experience for me.  If you are ever in New Hampshire and are priviledged to visit the Shakers Village, be sure to take the guided tour.  It is so informative.  I also took the song tour where I learned even more.  They were such good people but so misguided in my humble opinion.  Oh yes, they used the King James Version of the bible and is asked if they believed in the bible, their reply was, yes, the King James Bible.  Hope you get to go here some day.  So interesting.  New Hampshire, you also have a beautiful state and I love your statement on your sign. "Live Free or Die"

This is the place we started out to go when we took a side road yesterday.  It is a living museum.  People are dressed in period clothes of someone who lived in the house and they tell you all about it as it was in the time period they are protraying.

The green house

The mansion where a governor once lived.

The Victorian gardens.  A lady takes care of this garden.  She was tending it the day we were there.  She gave us seeds of two of the flowers planted there to bring home with us.

This is one of the plants which she gave us seeds.

This is the other.

One of the oldest houses in New Hampshire.

The fall colors are just beginning here.

A lady sitting in the garden making Christmas tree ornaments with some of the herbs to put a sweet fragrance in the house at Christmas.

This settlement was called Strawbery Banke because when the boat sailed to shore, there wild strawberries growing all along the banks, and the above spelling is the way they spelled it.

All, and more, of these houses were in this old community. 

I will not talk about all these houses, but let you enjoy the pictures and the antiques.

Another of the oldest houses in New Hampshire.

This lady potrayed the wife of this mans house and did a very good job of it.

Pat and I found a house which had a weaver in it, which was right up our alley.

We learned how to weave from this lady and it was really fun.  Of course if we had to do it all the time, we would not like it.

This guy was demonstrating cooking over an open pit fireplace.  What he told us was really interesting.  Certain items were not plentiful in those days; such as the cloth he is holding.  Said it was worth the equivalent of an acre of land.

This is a 5 lb. sugar block and was worth about 4 acres of land.  Not a lot of people could afford to get sugar in those days.

Another one of the oldest houses.

The was the viillage cooper.  A cooper is one who makes barrels.  He had a shed full of barrels but were not for sale there, because they had aready been sold to Hawaii and other museums.

The town blacksmith working on a wrought iron gate.