Lincoln New Hampshire

We needed a couple days before we could get into the RV Park we were headed to in Franconia, so we decided to stop in Lincoln New Hampshire. The Woman’s best friend recommended a fun campground there, and there was plenty to do for a day, so we decided to make that our stop to kill a couple days.

On the way, we stopped at a gem in Manchester NH. The Currier Museum was the creation of one of the early wealth residents of Manchester, the Currier family. This turned out to be one of the best small museums we have ever been to. In their small but diverse collection, we saw paintings by Van Goff, Picasso, da Vinci, Monet and Matisse, as well as Georgia O’Keeffe and sculptures by Remington and a cast of other famous artists. They had an extensive collection of 17^th and 18^th century furniture and housewares, including silver tankards crafted by Paul Revere, and his father who was also apparently a silversmith, and other notable names. It is a really fun visit, and the contents clearly impress.

The other interesting think in this museum’s collection is one of only two Frank Lloyd Wright homes in New Hampshire – they happen to be almost next door to each other. The Zimmerman House was built in 1950 for Dr. Zimmerman and his wife. Wright referred to this particular type of design as Usonian, apparently referring to the new world character of the design and landscaping. On her death, Mrs. Zimmerman left the home to the museum along with some funds to maintain it for some time. It is now an important part of the museum’s collection.

We toured the home, which was interesting. The front facing the street looks almost ugly – that is because Wright focused all his design on the side of the home facing the yard and living area. He created an almost completely glass wall on that side, which almost makes the yard and the home appear to run together – it is really fascinating. Because Wright tended to design his homes as well as the furniture in them, the home is almost exactly the way it looked when the Zimmerman’s lived in it – Mrs. Zimmerman even left most of their housewares to the museum as well. The Zimmerman's even left themselves there - their remains are buried in the back yard.

We had seen one of Wrights homes in Scottsdale Arizona – Taliesin West – out in the great outdoors surrounded by desert and rocks and mountains. While some of the features were recognizable from other Wright homes we have visited – built in furniture and the mingling of living and dining and entertaining spaces – it was quite interesting to see a Wright design in a fairly dense urban setting. We thoroughly enjoyed touring the home – a piece of art itself.

Lincoln is at the base of the infamous White Mountains, and the fall colors were beginning to blanket the slopes with a quilt of brilliant yellows, oranges and reds, with many other shades thrown in just for good measure. We headed into the heart of the Mountains on the Kancamagus Highway, a popular scenic drive any time of year, but packed when the fall hits.

At the White Mountain National Forest visitor center in Lincoln we got some good hiking information, and headed right to the Lincoln Wood Trail parking. The Lincoln Wood Trail is a 3 mile long stretch of reclaimed rail bed – read that 300 feet of elevation gain in 3 miles – nice! However, unlike most of the reclaimed rail bed trails we have been on, they forgot to remove the old ties, or decided just to abandon them as not being worth the effort to remove. Good news is that for most of the way you could walk on either side and avoid having to step over them all.

When we got to the end and added another 2,000 feet, we were rewarded by the roaring cascades of the Franconia Falls. We love hikes any hikes that don’t require extreme scrambling, especially when they have such a nice reward at the end.

Talk to you soon!