Our Visit with Kathy & Don

We arrived at Don & Kathy's charming home in New Hampshire and retired early after our exhausting day of air travel. The next day after a refreshing night's sleep we were ready for some sightseeing. Don & Kathy took us for a drive up the Maine coast. The scenery was beautiful - white sand beaches, forests of green trees and rocky coasts all the way up to Kennebunkport - where we pulled over by Walker Point and observed President Bush's grand home. We could only speculate if he was there or not but we could see that someone was playing tennis.

Bush Home at Walker Point, Kennebunkport, ME

I had announced that I wanted to eat a lot of lobster while in New Hampshire so our first lobster experience was a stop for lunch at Saunder's Restaurant where we sat outside with a lovely view and indulged in Lobster Rolls. This is a common item on menus everywhere and consists of a chunks of lobster in a mayo sauce - kind of a lobster salad - on a type of hot dog bun. In this case it was served with potato chips and the lobster was delicious.

We made a stop at the beautiful Wellington by the Sea Resort, where Don had once worked as head of maintenance. What a beautiful place! We walked through the marina and enjoyed the gardens and gazing out to sea.

Wellington-by-the-Sea Resort

On down the road we made another stop at the Ice Box for home made ice cream - yummy! We drove through Kennebunkport and then headed for home. The trip back was much faster as we did not drive along the coast. It was a very enjoyable day.

The next day was Don's birthday and we decided to stay around the house and relax. Kathy made a couple of salads and bought lobsters at the market for dinner. She had them steamed at the market and they came home ready to eat. Wow - what a feast!


On Friday we hit the road again for more sightseeing, this time to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Along the way we stopped for our picnic lunch of fabulous lobster rolls which Kathy had made from the leftovers of our feast. They were the best! The weather was a bit overcast but we enjoyed seeing more of NH and the beautiful mountains and forests.

Saturday it was time to pack up for our departure to Ireland. Our flight was scheduled for 7:00 pm so we had the whole day to get there. We made a stop at Costco and had lunch at Kelly's again where I enjoyed a heaping plate full of fried scallops and John had another roast beef sandwich. We were stuffed but figured we probably would not get much edible food on the plane.

Our Aer Lingus flight from Boston Logan Airport left a little early. They actually served dinner that was not too bad. I found it difficult to get comfortable enough to sleep but John dozed off for quite a long time. We arrived in Shannon early - about 5:30 a.m. Irish time. Our home exchange host, Denis, was at the airport to meet us and take us to Barna for the start of our exchange.