Hey hey USA - October 4th - from Lisbon to New Hampshire

This is intended as a photographic blog but I must give some background to the story.

My other half Alan hung up his working boots at the end of September 2022. Accordingly we planned a 'big holiday' to celebrate and decided on the USA as we have relatives out there. We would spend time with them and then a couple of weeks on our own.

Our intention was to fly to Boston to meet up with our nephew Mike for a couple of days, then fly down to Orlando where Alan's sister Anne lives and spend time with her family. Then we would  go on to southern New Mexico  with Anne, meet up with Mike again and travel up to Albuquerque, where Anne and Mike would fly back home and we would then spend time alone in northern New Mexico.

Liz Truss made the whole thing much more expensive by announcing her budget shortly before we left and crashing the pound!

3rd October we flew out to Boston. As we are Covid virgins we wore masks on the trip. On arriving at security my new blue! British passport was not working very well, the chip seems to be a bit non-compliant. I spent ages at the security desk while the guy fiddled about trying to get it to register. He managed eventually but during the process another security lady was talking to him and coughing continuously. Between coughs she was gasping 'Don't worry it's not Covid'.  More on this later!

Mike met us at the airport and we drove north through Massachusetts, stopping to look at the ocean in the rather smart resort of Rye. Mike has a main job as a historian but would do very well as a travel guide so he had planned out an itinerary which took in places, walks and some leaf peeping- it was October in New England after all.

Mike wanted to show us Portsmouth, just over the border in New Hampshire, one of his favourite places. It was beginning to get dark as we arrived and we wandered about through the very New England streets and looked at the impressive harbour.

There was a little garden with a fountain that was lit and nearby  the old 'Point of Graves' cemetery, a tiny plot with old headstones dating back to the 17th century. 

I rather liked the 'Modern Launderette'.

We ended the evening at 'Newick's Lobster' where we didn't have lobster as it was so expensive and then on to our accommodation, a glamping hut in Huttopia near Albany,  a few beers and then exhausted we climbed into bed.