48stateroadtrip.com

I guess it’s never a bad thing to go hang out on an aircraft carrier-museum for a few hours. Well — probably the second consecutive day of it might get old. Never done it that way, though, so I wouldn’t know.

I’m starting to realize that Charleston’s attractions are merely okay. OTOH, it’s been a great, comfortable, *polite* place to hole up for a few days.

That said, here are a few pictures of the same thing each time. (The aircraft carrier is the Yorktown, it was built in 1943 and therefore involved in WWII. Decommissioned in 1970. It smelled like an aircraft carrier.)

Oh, and I forgot to re-charge my DSLR battery, so these were taken with my cell phone, so they’re kind of crappy-looking.

Carrier, flag, Ravenel Bridge (connects Charleston with Mt. Pleasant)

Tailhook, but no scandal.

Hornet is go.

Bridge and Phantom viewed from flight control.

Y’know, I’m not sure I learned anything from this ship. The guy there didn’t know if there were any actual F4F Wildcats left anywhere (theirs was another FM-2). Um. They have a Medal of Honor museum on-board, but it was pretty dull. You do (re-)learn that aircraft carriers are big, complex systems there. Got to see the on-board dentist area. There’s also a submarine that you can walk through (torpedo room, engine room, officers’ rooms, bridge, galley, mess, torpedo room — IIRC).

Beautiful day, though.

bkd

(PS, I *did* learn that Charleston lost their navy base in, like, ’98 or so. Still got the AFB, though.)

Woke up in a hotel in White River Junction, Vt., rainy as promised. Got in the car, drove across the river to Hanover, N.H. and ended up in the middle of Dartmouth’s campus. It looked like an Ivy League campus — basically the same as USC, but with worse weather. IMHO.

First stop of the day came in Orford, which the Reader’s Digest book said was representative of all New England towns. But I think I missed the turn into town. Stopped at this church anyway (it was Sunday after all):

Wet road — a recurring Day 73 theme.

From there, headed up Highway 10 till I got to Haverhill Corner, at which point I got out of the car to take a photo of another church.

And only one power line in front of this one!

Yeah, and then I guess I could keep talking about how I stayed on the same highway for a while, except that would be uninteresting. And I’m all about mad hooks and, I dunno. It’s a little cold right now. I should do these exclusively at night. Meh.

The tree tunnels are different here. They all look like the opening scene of a horror movie set in 19th-century New England.

And then I — nothing. I did nothing. I think the next photo is from the town of Bath, except you only see the inside of *something*. It could also be in a horror movie if you wanted it to be. Or not. Either way’s probably fine. [BTW, it’s now evening.]

This would be the *inside* of the (covered) bridge. No cars allowed since ’99, though, which kind of kills it.

I think this is the Ammonoosuc River. I suppose I could just make up a name.

The Swiftwater Bridge. You can still drive over it.

My kingdom for a blue sky. Oh well. It’s not much of a kingdom.

Just FYI, I like(d) New Hampshire. It has two things that Vermont doesn’t:

1. Rivers!
2. Places to park so you can get out and take photos.

Huge. Anyway — Highway 112 is a fantastic drive. Blue sky, yes, would’ve ruled. As stated: oh well. Keeping on keeping on:

The, uh, highway.

The parallel lines of road and riverbed describe the dual nature of nature and non-nature.

More leaves. If you’re getting tired of them, maybe skip Day 74…

So then I ended up at this place called Flume Gorge. I don’t know who runs it — it seems to be on NFS land and the visitor’s center says something about a state park, but somehow it costs $13 to get behind their barricade and take a two-mile walk. It was about this time that it started raining kind of harder, which did not result in discounted admission to the two-mile walk.

The Pool.

Same bridge, same falls.

Different bridge, different falls.

And then the gorge.

Meh. These photos looked better last night than today. Maybe they’ll be good again in another week or two.

bkd