Well we've reached our destination! It was an epic journey from Bar Harbor to Jackson taking nearly six hours to get here. We made the decision to get breakfast on the way instead of going into town - our first mistake! We then hit the road for Jackson taking breakfast at a roadside cafe which looked like something out of the film Deliverance! Mike swore he could hear bangos playing and thought he could see someone cleaning his gun. To be fair the sandwich and coffee was very nice and set us up for the day. The road was long (cue for a song) and the speed limits for the open road seemed low, there seemed to be a lot of road works as well but the journey was not impeded by them. My navigating skills were challenged today when we had to travel through townscities with signposting leaving you guessing northsoutheastwest with only the road number being given. The road only yielded the direction once you had made a decision - which wasn't always the right choice and u turns had to be made. Mike was very patient with me and duly turned the car around. The drive into the White Mountains was in blistering heat (well around 80F) but as promised turned wet with light rain as we entered the state of New Hampshire. We had been looking for Mike's favourite coffee shop, namely Starbucks all day and we finally found one and called in for a drink (even though we were only a short distance from the hotel). That said we still could not find the hotel - it was tucked away up a hill with no obvious road name to be seen (nothing new there!). There's not much to do here unless you like walking, biking (either under your own steam or power driven as there is a lot of bikers around here).

The room has a very large bathroom with all mod cons including a large jacuzzi bath, double shower and room to swing several cats. The bed is again on the large side being able to sleep a whole family. You can sleep all night and never find the person next to you!

We are dining in the hotel tonight as we daren't risk going into town in case we don't make it back! We are considering travelling on the scenic train tomorrow, it looks like it is running (the season has not really started here yet and seems to be waiting for school to finish, which is this weekend).

Dinner in these parts is not quite as it is home. The USA style of fine dining is not up to our standards and wouldn't not pass muster with many of our chefs, that said the meal was okay. There are a lot very fussy Americans - expecting perfection with everything! Once sated we headed back to our room for the night.

I'll sign off from my first blog now and look forward to the rest of the weekend.