Main street antique stores with well-arranged display cases are fun but as for myself I prefer the quirkier establishments – basement antiques, mill antiques, and of course barn antiques. Much to my delight this store was in a barn out back of a cute little B&B. It was so quintessentially White Mountain-y.
And for being a barn it was WELL ventilated and cool. We saw all sorts of antiques, most of which were clearly linked to the local area. Ancient toys, old farming tools, a couple accordions, even a wooden opium pillow. What wasn’t to love? It was halfway like shopping and halfway like visiting a roadside country museum. I loved every bit of this place from its rustic inventory, to the chickens out back, to the cute little inn next door. It was the perfect way to end our journey into the white mountains and if you’re in the area go check it out! It’s a lot of fun!
We were having such a great day we weren’t ready to go home just yet so we looked up another antique store and found the Rockin’ Thru the Ages Antiques which was… an absolute riot. LOVED this place! It was the only antique store I’ve ever been to that had mini golf course out the back door. And inside? A rock wall. Clearly this place used to be something else but now it was an antique store I was loving how quirky it was.
This place was after my heart when right at the entrance there was two ventriloquist dummies sitting on the floor, slack-jawed, just gawking at people coming in. One was a Howdy Doody and the other was the same dummy I keep finding and not being able to buy. He was fully intact and only $35 and obviously almost came home with me. Only reason he didn’t was because he ended up being a pull string doll instead of a proper ventriloquist dummy. SIGH. SO CLOSE.
The main floor of this place was nice, spacious, good variety of things. My companion was a little weirded out by the display case of Nazi medals at the back. I was more freaked out by the wrought iron handcuffs that had a little label stating they were from a prison back in the day. Clearly an otherwise bright and happy store had this weird corner of human depravity. We shuffled off.
Downstairs was more fun because it was the epitome of basement antiques. SO MANY CLOWNS. And they were all hobos. Why? NO IDEA. I was already working through my own hobo related trauma after learning Candy Mountain, that sweet, adorable children’s song, actually had several lyrics that were censored from the final cut. Basically, it was narrated by a runaway boy telling a hobo pedophile to fuck off. And that’s what I was thinking about when I saw the hobo clowns. Adding clown make-up to the mix did not help.
All kidding aside this place had some weird things including a leather wine holder in the shape of a rooster. And the prices were unbeatable. I found an antique ceramic Jack-O-Lantern and brought him home for $5.
You find the weirdest things when you’re not looking for anything in particular. I remember reading something that was basically a whole belief system based on the power of going on daily walks. And you know what? As kooky as it sounds I’m not going to disbelieve there isn’t some whimsical hand of chaos at play here.
A great example of this was Defiant Records and Craft Beer. I am a teetotaler. I do not go to bars. But on this day we were walking down the street exploring and on the look out for a bathroom. We thought this establishment might be obliging to such a thing and they were! ‘Course there was only one stall so as I waited for my companion I was left to look around and this place… it was nice! A sweet little hipster bar in the middle of Laconia selling used records in the back for five bucks a pop. How cute is that?? Also loved the bloody Jason mannikin at the entrance.
I don’t know man, if I were into alcohol or looking to cruise for a date in the area this might be a fun little stop.
After spending a delightful afternoon in the Laconia Antique Center we decided to continue the day by taking a stroll down the street to see what Laconia had to offer. It’s always a fun way to get to know the personality of a town. So, with nothing in mind we ambled aimlessly and found a sweet little record shop.
I love going into these places. They’re usually super small, cramped, dark little dungeons full of old records in milk crates. This place… it was quite a bit more modern. It was well lit with an open-air feel. Records were scattered in various parts of the shop but the rest had musical instruments, supplies, CDs, and other media. It was like a tiny musical Woolworths. With interesting decorating style as the walls were plastered with music posters and similar imagery.
I don’t know if this place takes part in Record Store Day but it should. It’d be a nice stop!
Sometimes we end up at destinations just because that’s where our lazy google searches suggest. This one came up because it was the largest antique center in New Hampshire and we figured it’d be worth the drive. And it was! My goodness!
It was two VERY full floors and some of the things here were definitely different from other antique stores! One corner seemed to have a collection of automatic playing pianos, organs, and an old timey wooden telephone booth that looked like it may have been ripped from someone’s 1930’s parlor. Just aside that there was a FULL 1950’s SODA FOUNTAIN COUNTER with stools, shiny equipment, and an endearing menu that included milkshakes, frappes, and root beer floats. I have no idea when they had a server around but it wasn’t today. Sadly. I wouldn’t have minded a root beer float. I was fondly remembering the first time I ordered one in front of a group of horrified Europeans. Apparently, the rest of the world does not lob gobs of ice cream into their soda. Their loss! It’s a fun way to get diabetes. Did I mention the music they were playing here was mostly 1950’s hop music? So. Flipping. Cute.
The rest of the first floor was filled with the usual vendor booths and small items. A lot were clearly marketed towards bikers which made sense as Laconia Bike Week is huuuge every summer. Other books included a fascinating volume of English history, a book on cryptids, and lots of weird recipe books. Scattered among them were a lot of plastic dolls in varying levels of creepiness. There was even a possessed Snow White with red eyes. Why red eyes? No idea. Maybe she was getting ready for Halloween. There was also a tub of 30 naked Barbies for $45 which I had to debate not buying because I really want to start doing creepy doll make overs… the artist in me is bored. Or just procrastinating being an adult. Whatever you believe.
Speaking of letting my inner child play the upstairs was ADORABLE. There were a series of fully set up model trains with complete villages. And hidden among one we found Ninja Turtles protecting the streets from… bad guys? I forgot what Ninja Turtles fight but they were there! So were some dinosaurs. Because we like to be historically accurate these days. There were signs up letting you know when the trains run – only a few hours every weekend. It’s a bleeding shame we were there on a weekday because I think my heart may have melted if they were running.
We left empty handed that day but that’s mostly because I don’t have a cabin in the woods to install an old cast iron cook stove. This place was wonderful and well worth the drive. If you are looking for a little antiquing adventure punctuated with lots of nostalgia you absolutely should check this place out!
What’s the best way to end a day of antiquing and wandering? For me it might be just a little stroll through the woods. I let my companion choose the trail on this day and this became our chance to make the Prius cry again as it was down a long bumpy dirt road. And when we got to our destination we weren’t even sure it was our destination. All we could see was a faded sign board in front of an access path to the telephone poles. Still, we poked at it and eventually found a path that branched off the telephone poles.
It was starting to get dark and I was a little worried we might end up lost out here because there were no trail markers, numerous branching paths, and there was always the possibly of bears and whatnot. We only saw two other people the entire time we were walking. One was at the entrance – a woman picking ragweed aside the road. The second was on a bicycle who zoomed by at one point.
This trail seemed very suitable to mountain biking. It was long and flat but just the right kind of packed down dirt to encourage this sport. It was less suited to hiking but that’s OK, we still managed. As it was also a wildlife area there were studies going on. Signs warned of cameras (to prevent dumping!) and we found some mosquito buckets gathering specimens and the biggest bat box I have ever seen. Thing could have probably held 80 bats but being dawn I am pretty sure they were already out of it and hunting bugs. We did however find a cute little tree frog and the moon was so big and beautiful as it came up that I took a gorgeous photo of it between the trees.
This place was a nice stop. We got a very brisk walk out of it which was good for the blood. Otherwise, this wasn’t really a trail I’d suggest to hikers so much. There wasn’t any great views or anything, it was more just a good place to exercise. So, if you’re in the area and want to go mountain biking by all means this place is a good bet. And it goes on for a while. Just bring your sense of direction, you’ll need it!
You know what’s awesome about having a birthday at the end of September? It’s the perfect time to go apple picking! So that’s what I did to celebrate entering another year of life. And this year I decided to bring an old friend who happened to live just down the street from several orchards. I chose this one as it seemed to have a lot of varieties of apples listed and it also seemed a little less touristy. You know me, the perpetual introvert. I like supporting the little guys whenever I can.
I couldn’t have had a better experience. The people were wonderful, the apples were DELICIOUS, and we had such a great time catching up and picking the perfect bag of apples. This orchard was really lovely in that it allowed people to come with their well-behaved dogs so there were cute fluffy dogs accompanying their owners. It was like wandering through a Norman Rockwell painting.
And this orchard was nice in that it had all the trees labelled with colored markers, so you knew what kind of apple you were picking and what week they were supposed to be ripe. It had rained earlier on in the day so the ground was SOGGY and my friend had to lop off her shoes and barefoot it through the puddles. The grey clouds and raindrops on the apples made for some nice photo opportunities!
This place was really wonderful. I ended up with a bag of apples (and some of these apples were HUUUGE) as well as a $10 pumpkin which was perfectly round and I honestly don’t know if I am going to carve it or eat it. There was also a regular farm stand here so you could just buy a bag of apples if you didn’t want to pick them yourself.
I would definitely go back to this orchard. It was beautiful, the apples were just an amazing quality, and the people running the place were friendly and warm. This was the perfect way to spend my birthday.
One thing about exploring new places is that if you do it often enough you will run out of things to poke at in the area and will have to travel farther and farther away. That’s when it’s nice to have stops along the way! On this particular venture we wandered to a different corner of Massachusetts, one I had very little familiarity with. At the end of our destination, we were promised a large antique store, and we were not disappointed!
Whitney Hill Antiques is a multi-vendor antique mall that spans over three eccentric floors. As with every antique store we go to this one had its own character and on this particular day that would be because it was LOADED with paintings, photos, and other portraits of probably long dead children. You know the sort of thing you hang on your wall as an insta-ancestor or to beckon a haunting at your place. Seriously. Creepy, haunted, children. Swarms of them.
Not to be outdone there was also an assortment of terrifying dolls – one was even three feet tall. Don’t do that. Don’t make dolls 3 feet tall. It’s alarming. Another bizarre find was the first porcelain doll I have ever seen that possessed a mask. Why, I could not tell you. Perhaps it needed to hide its identity while haunting some poor child’s bedroom.
With this many vendors there was A LOT to go through and we spent a few hours here just overwhelmed by the variety of weird things. And most were pretty decently priced too. This definitely wasn’t a high-end market. I didn’t bring anything home this time, but this is definitely somewhere I would visit again and suggest to others who may be in the area.
Ponemah Bog was one of those last-minute finds that I expected nothing from. I had been in the area running errands when I decided to see what Google thought was worth exploring and the Ponemah Bog came up so off I went! And let me tell you – this place was sooo whimsical and fun!
It’s an easy boarded path into the wetlands and of course a wildlife sanctuary. As such dogs are not invited (sorry pooches!) I ended up at this bog twice – on the first visit I brought my mother just as a fun outing and I took SO MANY photos, including my first close up photo of a crane flying by and landing! But when I got home I found my camera didn’t have a card in it. My hard work was lost… but not my spirit. I went back a week later to take more pictures just so I could make this blog entry and here’s why:
It is the PERFECT season to go out in the bogs. Summer has passed so the pounding heat of the sun and the drumming of blood sucking bugs has slowed to a crawl and better yet it’s fall foliage season and some of the trees are already starting to turn their vibrant colors. And much to my surprise this included not just the trees but several low growing plants and a massive carpet of moss! Red moss! A whole field of it! It was absolutely magical!
Frogs darted under my feet, birds screamed at me for ruining the neighborhood, and I found LOTS of turtles sunning themselves on logs. This place was ALIVE. There’s a number of observation points and they’re all beautiful. I sat at some of them and just soaked it all in. On my first visit I came across a girl scout troop who complimented my T-shirt and told me to make sure to buy cookies (OK!) and on my second trip the only other person I saw was a workman putting fresh paint on the ends of the planks so no one trips. I tripped anyway because I have no grace whatsoever and ended up with an immediately SOAKED shoe – so…. don’t go off the boards!
All of this would have made it well worthwhile but the thing that really set me off was the carnivorous plants. In all my wanderings I have never seen them in New England but I did today! Sooo many pitcher plants and they were all stunningly gorgeous! It really set my heart a’ flutter. And really made me want to sing a score from Little Shop of Horrors but that’s a separate issue… ANYWAY… if you happen to be the area I would definitely say you should check this place out. It’s easy to get to, easy to walk, and very easy on the eyes!
As we all grow older and hopefully wiser we began to take on the gentle wisdom of phrases like, “Let lying dogs lie” but Caroline Cutter may have been an exception to this philosophy. You see after her death in the mid 1800’s her husband spent what I can only guess was a decent bit of money on a scathing 150 word headstone that called out several members of the community by name, accusing them of harassing his beloved to literal death.
Basically, this was a petty feud between a church and a couple who once attended services with them. According to the church Caroline’s husband Calvin Cutter was little more than a shyster. They accused him of bullying other church members into helping him fund his own church across town – a church that ultimately was never built. For these grievances they excommunicated both Calvin and Caroline and Caroline apparently took the blow to her reputation very hard and despite her better efforts was never able to get back into the good graces of the church.
After she died Calvin took it upon himself to make her headstone into one of the pettiest monuments ever carved. In it he claimed the excommunication destroyed his wife’s life, threw her into poverty, and eventually killed her while she was already down. That’s quite a bit of drama. Drama I don’t even think the town wants over 200 years later as a completely unrelated monument/plaque stands two feet from the stone nearly completely blocking it.
Now I don’t know if Calvin really was a na’ardowell, nor do I know if Caroline was really as dramatic as her husband. It seems as if social ostracization may have made both of them a little nutty. And maybe, just maybe, dear old Calvin wasn’t a grifter but just someone with ADD who let his rejection sensitivity spill over into his grief for his deceased wife. Anything could be possible!
But no matter what you believe the stone still reads thusly, Caroline H., Wife of Calvin Cutter, M.D. Murdered by the Baptist Ministry and Baptist Churches As follows: Sep’t. 28, 1838; aged 33 She was accused of lying in church meeting by the Rev. D. D. Pratt and Deacon Albert Adams. Was condemned by the church unheard. She was reduced to poverty by Deacon William Wallace. When an exparte council was asked of the Milford Baptist Church, by the advice of their committee, George Raymond, Calvin Averill, and Andrew Hutchinson They voted not to receive any communication on the subject. The Rev. Mark Carpenter said he thought as the good old Deacon said, “We’ve got Cutter down and it’s best to keep him down.” The intentional and malicious destruction of her character And happiness as above described destroyed her life. Her last words upon the subject were “Tell the Truth and The Iniquity will come out”
This stone is SUPER easy to find, though there is no parking in the cemetery or roadside. I parked at the gas station across the road but I guess there’s also a park around the corner with even more appropriate parking. The cemetery gates are behind a little park monument out front and should be open if it’s daylight hours. As for Caroline Cutter’s stone – it’s in the first row almost in the center right in front of someone’s barn and behind another completely unrelated monument.
