Today we decided to explore the area around Portsmouth, NH, which ended up being quite enjoyable. We started by heading to a restaurant called Linda’s in Seabrook and the food was great. From there, Peggy’s computer/phone let her know there was an L. L. Bean store right near the restaurant so we made a stop there and only left about $100 poorer. From the L. L. Bean store we departed towards our original destination. As you approach Portsmouth, at least from the SW, the residential buildings transition from nice, ordinary rural structures to very nice wood urban residences and masonry commercial and governmental buildings. The churches are quite beautiful.
Portsmouth streets are little narrow suckers but they are also one-way in quite a few places and even driving an enormous leviathan like our king cab Ford F-250 on the city roads was easy and not terrifying. The working waterfront is immediately adjacent to the main downtown commercial area so you can stroll around about a 10 block area and see most of the neat stuff in town. The sidewalks are brick pavers and grading was not their big claim to fame here so access if you are disabled or wheelchair-bound would be problematic. One must remember to look down often when navigating the ‘hoods here because if you don’t, you will be tripped up by the sidewalk surfaces and end up doing faceplants.
Despite the crummy sidewalks, downtown Portsmouth is gorgeous and strolling around is a treat. The buildings in the commercial area are pretty small so they can put about 20 businesses on each side of the street in each block. Fortunately for Peggy and me, there are bars and taverns liberally strewn throughout the downtown area so we barely had to cover any distance before being able to take side-trips into places where we were able to get porter. There are some nice places to sit down in the streets so if you get pooped, there are ample spots to sit and recuperate or sober up.
The first bar we went into, Portsmouth Brewing, did not have porter but we had a beer anyway. However, not having porter for us to drink is a sin only forgivable by God so we determined that we would be obliged to find a drink in some venue where they did have porter. In the Portsmouth Brewing taproom, they had an ad indicating that if you could produce your Portsmouth bar bill to the management at another brewery called Smuttynose Brewing, they would give you a flight of 4 sample beers from their products for half price. This offer was more than we could resist so we entered Smuttynose’s address into the Garmin and promptly arrived at Smuttynose. We were happy to discover that Smuttynose has not one but two porters which we felt obliged to try. These guys must really know what they are doing because their porters were great and we drank more than we should have. It was neat.
Before we became too blotto to drive we hopped back into Charlotte and drove home. When we arrived, we ended up striking up a conversation with our neighbors, one of whom had two rhubarb custard pies in her possession. Rhubarb pie has never been on my list of favorites but the neighbors brought over some of the pie which initially only Peggy tried. She was making yummy noises so I suppressed my cowardly instincts and tried a bite. I have now expanded my list of favorites because this pie was fabulous and I regretted only having one piece.
We can get four channels on the antenna here at Newfields. Unfortunately, they are all versions of the same PBS programming so our options are limited to cooking shows with boring hostesses or travelogues about places where you don’t want to visit. I ended my adventures for today by falling asleep to the background noises associated with Antiques Roadshow. Did you know that there are actually people that find worthless junk in their attics and can find out if their junk is valueless from an expert? If this kind of idiocy appeals to you, be sure to tune in this plainly worthwhile program.