What a Wonderful Week: Greetings from New Hampshire

Greetings from New Hampshire during Bike Week

How was your week? I needed a little change of scene and some rest, and I’m doing it up at my parents’ house in New Hampshire. If you’re from New Hampshire, you might think that this is a strange week to “get some rest,” as this is our infamous Bike Week here in the Lakes Region.

When I was a kid, bikers from all over the country and the world would swarm on my little region. It was wild, and not a little bit dangerous, but what I mostly remember is that it was LOUD.

I grew up on the flat of what’s known as Coke Hill (once upon a time there was a bottling plant at the bottom), and all night long, especially on Saturday night, bikes would roar up and down and up and down. Occasionally you’d hear someone dump their bike, and sirens would blare the entire time.

Eventually, my family opted to go camping in the mountains during the worst (sorry, bikers) of it, but I remember a combination of fascination with knowing that there were real biker gangs nearby and a bit of fear because of same. About a decade before my family moved to Laconia, there had been riots in Weirs Beach, and there was always a possibility that something like that would happen again.

As soon as I left Laconia, I avoided visiting my parents this particular week, but times have changed. 

Bike Week now

If Bike Week in the 70s and 80s of my childhood was a wild spectacle, today it is mostly quaint. As a friend of mine put it, it’s the exact same people who come to the Lakes Region. However, they now tow their bikes on trailers and just “tool around.”

A couple of yahoos revved their engines around midnight last night, but it was over quickly. So far my highlight is the biker blaring “Carry On, My Wayward Son” at about 5 a.m. I wondered if they were a Supernatural fan. As I write, more bikers are coming into town, but I don’t anticipate mayhem.

The times, they do change.

What kind of interesting festivals take place in your neck of the woods?

Read

I’m looking for a good novel to read for the summer. What do you recommend?

Otherwise, I’ve just finished Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly, and I definitely recommend it. There’s a fairly big section on parenting that wasn’t specifically relevant to me, however, I did find the different ways in which vulnerability, when done from a healthy place and in a healthy way, can help us to make the connections that make our lives worth living.

Engage and give

How do you give back? I’d very much like to know more about the causes that are important to you and how you support them. I’m keeping a running list on the Engage page, but I’m definitely looking for other ways to do better in the world.

If you’re able to, I encourage you to take up the practice of getting in touch with your elected officials regularly. It’s definitely a marathon, not a sprint, but I’ve had callback from the offices of some officials and have been able to share my views and ask pointed questions. Definitely beats yelling at the TV for getting something done.

The upcoming week

This coming week, we’re going to be celebrating summer.

Travel: Tomorrow, I’m sharing my Boston Bucket List for this summer. It’s going to be awesome.

Eat: We’ll have a summer recipe roundup this week, and I’ll also share some recipes from others that I love to make in summer.

See: We’ll have a Sundry Wonders post this week. I may move these to Tuesdays during the summer to break things up a bit as we’re in summer hours, but this week it will still be on Monday.

We’ll also have either a post from the archives or a quick post on summer reading on Wednesday.

Until then, let’s catch up with the week’s posts.

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