Starting Location: Boston, MA
Destination: Portsmouth, NH
Dining Locations: The Black Cow, Hamilton, MA; The Blue Mermaid, Portsmouth, NH
Travel Time: 3 hours (taking US1)
Guest journalist Emily here… Patrick is snoring next to me. Today we woke up in Boston, threw open the curtains, and saw…. rain. Misty, grey, only-in-New-England rain. The weather on the TV was no more promising… rain for our entire journey north. Today we only planned to travel only about an hour, due to somewhat of a glitch in the otherwise seamless travel plans. I thought I planned for three nights in Maine, but realized shortly before we left home that I planned only two nights there, leaving us with a one night gap. Hence, we threw a dart between Boston and Kennebunkport and landed on Portsmouth, NH. We stopped here once to use the restroom on the way from the Boston Airport to Maine, and we remembered thinking it was cute. But I digress… back to the rain.
We packed up our gazillion bags and headed to the car, which had the day off yesterday while we enjoyed being shuttled around Boston. I think I heard the car groan as we approached with our cart loaded with bags. We decided to drive through Cambridge and see a bit of Harvard, as our lunch destination was only a short ways away and it was only just 9:30. We saw as much as we could of the campus through the car windows. Hunter slept the whole time, but I’m pretty sure he was taking in the scholarly vibes and is shortlisting it as a potential future move. We also saw a bunch of cute stores and restaurants we couldn’t stop for because of the rain. Oh, Patrick just came to and cheered…
After Cambridge, we punched in our lunch destination and told the GPS to avoid the highways. We still had at least an hour to kill on a 20 mile journey. Well, kill time we did. I think we stopped for every light between Boston and Hamilton, MA. We saw many little seaside, yet surprisingly un-quaint, towns. This was not the picturesque coast that we were anticipating, but we figured it couldn’t be any worse than I-95. We arrived at The Black Cow in Hamilton right after they opened at 11:30. We dashed through the rain and arrived in their cozy establishment. The restaurant is in the first brick building in the town which used to house the post office until the mid-1980s. It has a lot of artifact-y type decor and smells like the monk scene in Spaceship Earth (you Disney folk know exactly what I mean… others, it’s like burning wood). I went to this restaurant once a few years back with my parents, and thanks to the wonders of the internet, found it online last night and knew we had to pay it another visit. Well, the second time around, I still loved the atmosphere, but the actual experience left a little to be desired. The waitress was as dull as this journal entry (clearly Patrick is the funny one) and the food was average. Patrick had a burger that he said was only “okay” which is never good for a burger… hard to mess that up. After a warm “Here ya go” with the check, we left a paltry tip and were on our way.
After driving through Hampton and seeing some more of my mom’s old stomping grounds, we arrived at our hotel in Portsmouth. In case you’re wondering… still raining. We put Hunter down for a nap and decided that wasn’t a bad idea, so we had a nice group nap hour to see if we could sleep off the rainy weather. No such luck… the curtains parted and the rain was still coming down. For dinner, we decided to go across the street to a restaurant called The Blue Mermaid, where apparently Rachael Ray ate on either Tasty Travels or $40 A Day. Well, probably not the latter b/c she would have had to have a side salad and a water to make her budget. Anyway, we ate downstairs in the lounge/pub area, which was super cutely decorated, and we had a great server/bartender named John. He was very welcoming and understanding of the cranky child we came bearing. We sat in the back corner and tried to bother as few people as possible. After making fun of this restaurant for serving Caribbean Island cuisine in the American Northeast, I have to humbly send my apologies out into the universe. We had a great meal! We both had plantain encrusted grouper which had a chipotle cream sauce on top. Delicious. One of the sides was a grilled banana, which was a cool and different dish you don’t see many, or any, places. For an appetizer we had saddle bags, I think they were called, which were like wontons filled with shredded chicken and spices. Very good, and even Hunter loved them! What he did NOT love, however, was the rest of the meal, and we pretty well inhaled our fish to get him the h-e-double-hockey-sticks out of there before he got us an engraved invitation to leave. He wanted DOWN and he made it clear to us at every opportunity. *sigh* Love the new word!
After dinner, we took a five minute walking tour of downtown Portsmouth, while the sky continued to spit directly in our faces. All the cute stores were already closed… this is weird. Patrick just cheered again in his sleep… must be a good dream. We will hopefully get a chance to pop into a few in the morning before we head north to Kennebunkport and our beloved fried clams on the bridge. Checked the weather forecast… supposed to be highs in the 60s but only a slight chance of rain. Let’s hope, because there is shopping to be done. I am in withdrawal. Traveling with a child is definitely a different experience than our carefree roadtrip days of the past, but we wouldn’t want to do it any differently. The little guy is such a goofball that he is adding loads of enjoyment to our time. Remember that I said this the next time we tell you about the scene he makes in a restaurant.
I promise Patrick will return tomorrow with trivia and the funny stuff. Don’t forget to submit your trivia answers… the contest is still wide open!!
