06.12.08
Sugar Hill Sampler
Once every year, the “north country” New Hampshire celebrates with a Lupine Festival. We have attended on other occasions, camera in hand, to capture views of the flower-filled meadows, the mountains, and the azure sky.
This year, we also stopped at the “Sugar Hill Sampler,” located in an old barn on Sunset Hill Road, Sugar Hill, New Hampshire. Most of the place is for retail sales of fine crafts, quilts, tablerunners, maple sugar candy, jellies, lamps, and much more. The building houses a museum with a variety of small items such as large poster-type images of President Eisenhower, Victorian-age quilts, barkcloth, some old shoes, a dress for a little girl, embroidered with flowers, and other items of interest.
Outside, there is a specially-mowed path so that anyone can walk through the Lupine Fields. It would be a great setting for some impressionistic Plein-Air painting. For a nominal fee, there are horse drawn wagon rides available on weekends, from 10:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
Of course, a trip to the area would not be complete without a stop at the Bath General Store, the oldest store of its kind in the country. Food-wise, their main attractions are their smoked cheese and bacon, and their fudge of many flavors. This month’s special flavor is Creamsicle, an orange and white confection that is delicious.
The northern tier of New Hampshire has much to offer those who like to take “the slow road.” I was waiting for a moose to jump out of the bushes, but instead we saw a few working farms with cows.
Some days, one has to do something completely different than … work. So, that was our great escape.
Patricia Cummings
