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choco_froshThoughts on the second Berlin trip:
When it comes to mountains, New Hampshire is a land of hyperbole. The seven hundred-foot granite crag that overhangs Berlin, down whose sheer sides idiots with death wishes occasionally ski, would anywhere else in New England be a major location: photographed, the center of a state park, climbed by innumerable trails and boy scout troops. Here, though, with the five thousand foot bulk of mounts Madison and Adams dominating the horizon to the south, the sides of their corries still festooned with patches of snow, it’s hard to be impressed by Mt. Forist. It’s harder still to be impressed when you get back to New Haven from the very foot of those mountains in one sunny day: East Rock, by comparison, is simply titchy.
Snow:
“Can you see the seven?” the realtor asked me. He pointed up to the upper part of Adams Gulf, where snow still lay, shielded from the sun by the mountain. “Around here, they say you shouldn’t get in the water until the seven breaks.”
The “Seven” looked more like a cuneiform wedge to me, but I could see the resemblance when I thought of a seven done in paint that had then dripped. I couldn’t see the wisdom of the local tradition so clearly: when I stuck my hand in the Androscoggin that afternoon, it didn’t seem that cold. Then I tried wading one of the local streams. yeah. There’s a difference between “dipping your hand in”, and “prolonged submersion.” Especially when the water’s coming directly off the snow fields, number-shaped or no.
But that was later. For the moment, we were trying to keep Peter happy (and clean, not easy either in disposable diapers) while seeing as many potential homes as humanly impossible. This was made more complicated by how insanely precipitous Berlin is. We also drove up to Milan, the next town north, which caused me to reflect on another aspect of local geography: how much landscape changes from place to place. Oh, the huge mountains all around stay the same, nearer or farther; but whereas Berlin looks like North Adams got built onto Ithaca (all ex-industry and the handsome civic buildings it once funded, now all decaying together along streets that look like they ought to have stairs), you could have picked Milan out of the Lake Champlain Valley: all picturesque cornfields and pastures along a river. Then there’s Gorham, yet another small town making its money off the tourists, and Randolph, your classic White Mountain village with one civic building and a couple of redundant churches, all on one road you wouldn’t think was there, populated mostly by semi-retired liberals with money.
All these places, I now mostly know from viewing their (numerous) properties for sale. Or rather, the lower end of same: a visit to H&R Block that afternoon revealed that even buying one of them would be complicated. Unfortunately, all of them seemed to have been built on the cheep around 1970: a cramped single floor apartment, sometimes with strange basements below: but apart from those they could have been prefabricated. Maybe they were. (And ALL with wood paneling! Who thought that was a good idea?) And this applied even to the houses in Milan, where the riverbank property is lovely, but a gajillion miles from Grace's prospective place of employ.
The last two houses on our list we didn't get to see: one of them apparently belongs to one of Berlin's (apparently multiple) divorced and now feuding couples. We took a detour up Cate's Hill Road instead, where the current rector suggested that there were some nice properties. And indeed, we found the perfect house. Only problem? About fifty thousand dollars out of our price range. (We're really wishing it hadn't just been redone, or at least that they'd left out the jacuzzi...)
More later.
When it comes to mountains, New Hampshire is a land of hyperbole. The seven hundred-foot granite crag that overhangs Berlin, down whose sheer sides idiots with death wishes occasionally ski, would anywhere else in New England be a major location: photographed, the center of a state park, climbed by innumerable trails and boy scout troops. Here, though, with the five thousand foot bulk of mounts Madison and Adams dominating the horizon to the south, the sides of their corries still festooned with patches of snow, it’s hard to be impressed by Mt. Forist. It’s harder still to be impressed when you get back to New Haven from the very foot of those mountains in one sunny day: East Rock, by comparison, is simply titchy.
Snow:
“Can you see the seven?” the realtor asked me. He pointed up to the upper part of Adams Gulf, where snow still lay, shielded from the sun by the mountain. “Around here, they say you shouldn’t get in the water until the seven breaks.”
The “Seven” looked more like a cuneiform wedge to me, but I could see the resemblance when I thought of a seven done in paint that had then dripped. I couldn’t see the wisdom of the local tradition so clearly: when I stuck my hand in the Androscoggin that afternoon, it didn’t seem that cold. Then I tried wading one of the local streams. yeah. There’s a difference between “dipping your hand in”, and “prolonged submersion.” Especially when the water’s coming directly off the snow fields, number-shaped or no.
But that was later. For the moment, we were trying to keep Peter happy (and clean, not easy either in disposable diapers) while seeing as many potential homes as humanly impossible. This was made more complicated by how insanely precipitous Berlin is. We also drove up to Milan, the next town north, which caused me to reflect on another aspect of local geography: how much landscape changes from place to place. Oh, the huge mountains all around stay the same, nearer or farther; but whereas Berlin looks like North Adams got built onto Ithaca (all ex-industry and the handsome civic buildings it once funded, now all decaying together along streets that look like they ought to have stairs), you could have picked Milan out of the Lake Champlain Valley: all picturesque cornfields and pastures along a river. Then there’s Gorham, yet another small town making its money off the tourists, and Randolph, your classic White Mountain village with one civic building and a couple of redundant churches, all on one road you wouldn’t think was there, populated mostly by semi-retired liberals with money.
All these places, I now mostly know from viewing their (numerous) properties for sale. Or rather, the lower end of same: a visit to H&R Block that afternoon revealed that even buying one of them would be complicated. Unfortunately, all of them seemed to have been built on the cheep around 1970: a cramped single floor apartment, sometimes with strange basements below: but apart from those they could have been prefabricated. Maybe they were. (And ALL with wood paneling! Who thought that was a good idea?) And this applied even to the houses in Milan, where the riverbank property is lovely, but a gajillion miles from Grace's prospective place of employ.
The last two houses on our list we didn't get to see: one of them apparently belongs to one of Berlin's (apparently multiple) divorced and now feuding couples. We took a detour up Cate's Hill Road instead, where the current rector suggested that there were some nice properties. And indeed, we found the perfect house. Only problem? About fifty thousand dollars out of our price range. (We're really wishing it hadn't just been redone, or at least that they'd left out the jacuzzi...)
More later.
