Betsy remained down in the dumps over Martha's departure but per usual, she successfully researched the Internet and found directions to eight different camping parks in the area. One, the Surry Mountain Campground was near our house and a brief drive-through showed only one out of state visitor, a New Hampshire tenter. Three facilities were in nearby Swanzy; a town where we'd considered buying a home what seemed like years, not months, ago. It was a short but pretty journey with beautiful scenery and lake side vistas. On the Westport Village Road we passed through the first covered bridge thrilling Molly to no end. The 1862 bridge burned and was painstakingly replaced in 2001.
Molly accepted our excuse we were looking for someone without explanation as perused our first campground, unsuccessfully. In response to Molly's questions about covered bridges, we drove through two more in the area for her pleasure. The next bridge was on Carlton Road and originally dated back to 1789. The structure was just under seventy feet long and about twelve feet high; said to be the height designed to accommodate a wagon fully loaded with hay.
There were two campgrounds on beautiful Swanzy Lake but neither had campers from California. Four down; four to go. Two were in outlying areas north of town and two in the city of Keene. On the way back, we took time to show Molly the West Swanzy covered bridge.
This structure, twice as long as the last one, was in more recent years, augmented by a downstream modern bridge. Prior to its construction, a school bus could only pass over it empty, necessitating the children to alight, walk, and rejoin their transportation of the far side. Molly thought this was a splendid story.
One of the Keene campgrounds proved to be a mobile home park with no short term visitors. Our next to last stop was Wheelock Park in Keene. The camping facilities were secondary to the main park functions, multiple ball fields, tennis courts and twenty-four horse shoe pits, for the serious pitcher. I'd never noticed the camping area the rear when I'd come down to watch some serious softball. The collection of well-defined sites was tastefully arranged around a circular loop with about thirty camp sites on both the inside and outside of the narrow roadway. The camp ground was manned on a volunteer basis. Sitting on a secluded site at the far side of the circle, on the outside, sat a mid-sized Pace Arrow motor home with California Plates!
The look of shock on Betsy's face was immediately picked up by Molly and frightened the young girl. "What's the matter? Is that your friend?"