Van Trips

This trip sets the current record for living out of a 1/2 ton van without resorting to hotels!

White Mountains National Park is located in New Hampshire, and is not that small a park (as we found out). It is vaguely reminiscent of the Blue Ridge Parkway, as the drive on the "Cank" (Cancamangus Highway, or Rt 112) is very similar - series of climbs and drops interspersed with overlooks and the occasional "Unimproved Road", as my GPS calls them, invitingly appearing on either side. Unlike the Blue Ridge Parkway, this park charges a fee, a whopping $5 for a week. The permit you get in exchange for you money allows you to park (yes, overnight) just about anywhere you want

One of these overlooks had a parking lot on either side of the road, and the back lot is where we spent most of our nighs - we liked it that much. The overlook faced East so we got to watch the sunrise from bed every morning. Despite what the locals might call a "crowded" situation (local speak for 20 people instead of 10 in a 50 mile radius), "our" parking lot was basically ours for the whole 6 days including Labor Day Weekend - the camera-vision tourist types were interested in the other parking lot, and they would periodically arrive, jump out of the car, put on fake smiles and take pictures, jumping back into their cars so fast that one might think they just smashed someone's mailbox and were now escaping the gun-toting owner.