Our next destination, Littleton NH, proved to offer us a bit of a challenge.  The highways for some odd reason aren’t laid out in a way that serves our needs perfectly, thus the driving this day would be mostly done away from the nice wide lanes and easy curves offered by our current highway system.  Though time seemed to pass quicker thanks to having more to look at then just a tree lined highways, our five and a half our drive (done without a single stop by the way) proved to be very exhausting and a good deal bumpier then we would have preferred given we are towing 10,000 pounds.  Sadly the tough drive proved to be a bit rough on the Cottage, and we found numerous minor things that had broken or come open during the drive.  One such item was the food pantry, which resulted in a number of food containers spilling out onto the floor, some being crushed or broken.  Our favorite peanut butter, from the Mount Joy Country Store, found some freedom from it’s container and coated a bit more then pretzels and chocolate unfortunately.

We were blessed with good timing on our travels, we had a number of small rain storms that hit us while driving, but we managed to miss the worse of it.  That is… until shortly after we got to the campsite and the skies opened up.  Thankfully, we had just finished setting up and the rain gave us a perfect excuse to just sit back and relax inside.

Not having a firm plan for everything we were going to do here we found a nearby state part and headed to it on our first full day.  Franconia Notch State Park is located in the north west corner of the White Mountains National Forest and is nestled between two mountains making for some spectacular views and amazing water ways.

We ended up deciding to do some hiking (close to four miles in the end) along the recreation trail that runs the length of the park.  At several spots along this trail you can access various streams that run down from the mountains that flank the park.  One small side trail we followed even led us down to a ladder to get along side the water.

Let me take a very quick moment to mention how insanely beautiful almost every stream, pond, and river we see up here are.  Between the lush vegetation on either side, the rocks, and the clear water you could take almost any still image from one of these locations and turn it into a post card.

Along our walk we found a number of waterfalls and, had we dressed appropriately, some amazing swimming holes (if your ok with the cold mountain water).