Touring Around with Friends in NH and Maine

 Over the weekend of Sept 5-7, our friends visited from Maryland and we toured them around. Today's blog will give you an idea of fun things to do in New Hampshire and southern Maine that include a famous lighthouse, an outdoor festival, an historic mill area, lunch at an old train station and more! 

VISITING NUBBLE LIGHTHOUSE - One of the "Must-see" places if you visit northern New England is Nubble Light in York, Maine. When we arrived there, there was a line of gusty thunderstorms headed our way, so the winds picked up and the temperature dropped from 80 F to about 62 degrees F!

ABOUT NUBBLE LIGHT - Nubble Lighthouse is famous for its picturesque setting on a small, inaccessible island, making it an iconic and heavily photographed symbol of New England's maritime heritage and coastal beauty. Its classic red-and-white tower, timeless charm, historical significance, and accessibility from a nearby park also contribute to its popularity among tourists, photographers, and lighthouse enthusiasts. It is located in SOHIER PARK, Sohier Park Rd, York, ME 03909

A FUN FESTIVAL - In downtown Dover, New Hampshire we attended the "Mystics, Makers & Magick Market" on Saturday, Sept. 6, in Dover. This was a New Age kind of festival. there were yoga classes outside, jewlery makers, tarot readers, relaxation massage, reiki, candles, soaps, tee shirts, authors and many other things. The event was large and vendors were in tents. 

INTERESTING ART EXHIBIT - Local artists put together a display that took a while to figure out. One part had amazon boxes, with the logo upside down and things bursting out of them, like wires. It was a statement against Amazon for being part of the billionaire problem of rich people trying to run the country.  Another part was a wheel barrel full of orange cheetos, and I could guess who that's referencing.  

   After the festival we walked through downtown old Dover, NH and took in the former Mills and the Cocheco River. 

COCHECO MILLS, DOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE - The Cocheco Mills comprise a historic mill complex in the heart of Dover, New Hampshire. The mills occupy a bend in the Cochecho River that has been site of cotton textile manufacturing since at least 1823, when the Dover Manufacturing Company supplanted earlier sawmills and gristmills. The present mill buildings were built between the 1880s and the early 20th century, and were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.

MILL OPERATIONS - By 1898, the Cocheco Manufacturing Company covered over 30-acres of floor pace, operated 130,000 spindles in 2,800 looms, and employed 2000 workers earning an average wage of 53 cents a day, six days a week. Housed in 15 buildings, the Cocheco Print Works produced over 65,000,000 yards of finished cloth a year.

MILL CLOSES, CHANGES - Competition from textile processors in the American South, unburdened by the North's heating costs, combined with the effects of the Great Depression, led Pacific to shutter the complex in 1937. The city purchased the complex at auction in 1941. The buildings have since been home to a succession of smaller enterprises, primarily engaged in manufacturing.  The buildings also house offices, restaurants, breweries and bars.

BEST BREAKFAST AND LUNCH - Breakfast Station #319 at  Main Street, Somersworth, NH has the best breakfast and lunch in the entire southern NH area. Everything is wonderful. It's housed in an old passenger train station ticket office. Behind the restaurant are the railroad tracks that now only serve freight trains, and run along the Salmon Falls River that acts as a border between Maine and New Hampshire.

Across the river from Somersworth, New Hampshire lies the small town of Berwick, Maine. It's very quaint. So we stopped for a picture in front of town hall. 

Of course, when you walk over the bridge that spans the river, one side says "New Hampshire" and the other "Maine" so there had to be pictures taken there, too!