Boston Trip: Tuesday's Jaunt to New Hampshire

Tuesday morning John drove us all to Boston's Logan Airport so Frank and I could pick up our rental car and so Joe and Margaret could catch their flight back home. We were afraid if John drove all the way in to where the shuttle busses go at the satellite rental pickup facility he might not be able to get out again without puncturing his tires on those spikes that they have at the parking lot gates. He dropped us just short of the gate in a very awkward place with little room to turn the van around. We all got out and exchanged goodbye hugs. Since we were holding up traffic, all the cars and shuttle bus drivers were honking for us to hurry up and get out of the way. It was a very rushed and abrupt end to a fantastic visit but I guess you could say we left to fanfare.

We parted amidst a cacophony of blaring horns
courtesy of those beloved Boston drivers. 

We programmed our Magellan GPS, Maggie, to the Center Harbor Inn on the northern shore of Lake Winnepesaukee, NH, just across the way from Keepsake Quilting. We arrived about an hour before the 3:00 checkin time but our room was ready. We had been assigned a corner room on the water front.

This is the Center Harbor Inn as viewed when you enter their parking lot.
See those three tiny white rectangles on the far corner of the building way down near the lakefront?
They are balconies. The room we were assigned was on the second story and had the middle balcony.

This picture was taken from our balcony.  The hotel is not new by any means and not luxurious but it was neat, tidy, friendly, and the location could not have been better. The lake was right there and we were a two minute walk down the road from Keepsake Quilting.

This is the idyllic scene from our balcony at the Center Harbor Inn.

Our friends Dick and Linda pulled into the parking lot within an hour of us settling in. Dick was the student advisor from Frank's dorm during his college days at Saint Joseph's College, a small Jesuit run school in Philadelphia, PA with a great basketball team, the Hawks. When Dick and Linda emerged from their car I cringed as Frank, who'd been watching for them from our balcony, boomed out his standard historic greeting for his college buddy "Balls, Richard! Balls!" so it resounded across the parking lot. We exchanged quick hugs and agreed, since neither of us had eaten lunch, that we should nourish our bodies before depleting our pocketbooks. We ate at a cute spirited diner just down the road.

The food had home cooked appeal with a bit of a modern twist added.

Linda is an avid knitter and quilter. Dick is into model trains, the large scale LGB type. After lunch we went straight to the business at hand. Dick and Frank set out to find a nearby model train store while Linda and I went to the iconic Keepsake Quilting shop and had fun perusing the quilt store together. The guys caught up with us there, realizing we needed a head start so as not to exhaust their capacity to appear interested. I will not bore my WanderOrPonder readers with the details, but I have a shop review and display of the fabrics I bought shown in the August 21, 2013 post at my other blog, DianeLoves2Quilt. The shop also had completed quilts for sale by other quilters. There was quite a range of sizes, styles, colors... and prices!!! 

Linda and me under the logo sign of Keepsake Quilting. 

Linda's first love is knitting and we admired many of the yarns and buttons in the patternworks knit shop, located just next door. Linda scored a discount for sharing her current project. She is knitting a Froggerina. Yep, that is a ballerina frog.  Yep, it is green and pink. What fun! Her granddaughter is really into ballet and she also bought some ballerina fabric for her at Keepsake Quilting. After the knit shop we browsed in an adjacent book store. Reading tastes are another thing that Linda and I apparently have in common.

Linda's knitted Frogerina scored her a discount at the patternworks knit shop.

That evening we luckily happened upon this restaurant in a shopping center within walking distance to the one that housed the quilt, knitting, and bookstores. The food was excellent. Linda and I both chose the chef's specialty roast chicken. We both agreed we had never – yes, I did say NEVER – had chicken so moist and flavorful. If you are up that way I highly recommend Lavinia for the food, furnishings, and ambience in a very moderate price range.

Lavinia's menu not only had the food list but also the background of the historic building and the origin of the restaurant's name. The building had been part of the underground railroad to rescue slaves and assist them in their escape.  Lavinia was a woman who figured prominently in the venture's success. Dick asked me to read this story aloud to our foursome while we waited for our meals to arrive from the kitchen. It was a full page's worth but I read it aloud while they listened to the whole thing.

Lavinia's lighting gives it a real homey glow at night. I took this photo before the rain really poured down as we were leaving. It had just been drizzling before and the light reflecting off the paved surfaces was so pretty.

Apparently Dick, Frank, and Linda were not the only ones who had listened. After we had eaten and paid and were leaving, a couple at a table we passed stopped me, and the woman said how much they had enjoyed my reading. I was somewhat embarrassed. I did not realize my voice had carried that far but they were sincere and complimented my "smooth reading voice". I thanked them and shared that we were on vacation and just happened on this restaurant because it was near Keepsake Quilting. The woman was a quilter, too! In fact she is one of the unsung heroes of the quilting community.

Carol Doak is a name well known among quilters who use a technique called paper piecing and she has published many patterns and books of patterns. The woman I met at Lavinia's, was a tester for those patterns. She makes a pilot project trying out the pattern for accuracy and correctness and picks what selection of colors best set off the pattern. Her work is photographed and appears in those books. Her name is Beth Meek. Very few recognize her name but I can sure appreciate all her talent and input that goes unnoticed. I repeat. Beth is among the unsung heroes of the quilting realm. Her substantive contributions to those books goes largely unrecognized. So if you see a pattern or book by Carol Doak, take a closer look and see if you can find a credit to Beth Meek, one of the women behind the well known paper piecer. I know I plan to. This serendipitous conversation really tickled me on this part of my trip.

This is an example of paper piecing. Fabric pieces are sewn onto a piece of paper
in an order prescribed by the numbers. Later the paper is removed.

It was pouring rain that night when we left the restaurant. Our hotel was close by, but Dick and Linda still had to drive a ways back to theirs. Linda still wanted to see the fabrics I had bought at the Lowell Quilt Festival so they came back to our room for a bit.  I showed her my treasures. You too can see them at my DianeLoves2quilt blog in the post for August 19, 2013.

Next morning, after checking out of our hotel, Frank and I met Dick and Linda for breakfast at the Tilt'n Diner. It had a 50's diner theme, somewhat like that out of the Back to the Future movie. There was jukebox music piped out into the parking lot.  Frank and I did a demo of our Triple Step Swing and Hustle from our Arthur Murray dance lessons out there on the blacktop. We parted for Dick and Linda to return  home and for Frank and me to continue our trip down to Rockport where it would be just the two of us for the last days of our time in the Boston area.

Dick, Linda, and I are sharing a last group hug before Frank and I head off to continue our trip.
The pouring rain from the night before had dissipated. We had lovely blue skies with fluffy white clouds.