Kancamagus Scenic Highway…say that fast three times. It is a road less travel through the White Mountain National Forest (Two fer day) that follows the bends of the Swift River through about 35 miles of mid state New Hampshire. Despite what is happening in Texas, it is still early spring here. The cherry trees, and hardwoods are just budding…the elms, yes, elm trees, flank the highways. Just as we have seen pine tree forest destroyed by beetles, last century, it was Dutch Elm disease. Texas has very few elms particularly in the Houston area….here in New Hampshire, there are plenty.
Typically, in season you can ride one of the two scenic railways through the forest and see the granite cliffs, waterfalls and gorges along the Swift River. We are here before Memorial Day, so it is our trusty black rental car. Post breakfast, with the two cups of coffee on our elm shaded balcony, we headed to Moulton Farm and store. We were early enough to see the locals carrying out clear garbage bags full of fresh salad greens and baby kale. Be still my beating bunny rabbit’s heart. Inside this New Hampshire farm store each shelf held a new item begging to be tasted. Baked goods, cider doughnuts, fresh pasta, fresher cheeses, greenhouse tomatoes grown out the back door, fresh made chips or roasted coffee. Do not get me started about the variety of Pickles. We had planned for a picnic lunch at Rocky Gorge water fall mid drive along the highway. I came prepared. I packed a cooler…but not a sharp knife. TSA still frowns on carrying knives on board of planes. We made do with an assortment of plastic cutlery and napkins.
The drive was lovely, despite the grey skies. As this is shoulder season, before the trains run, we had the road and park pull offs to ourselves. Other than Park support buildings there may have been all of three houses that probably predated this becoming a national park. As advertised, the internet GPS was sketchy. Glad there was not much mystery in what road to take. We ended in Holderness which appears to have the snow skiing business and related tourism sown up…complete with a couple of Wineries and huge white wooden hotel with red roofs. On the far east of this scenic Highway, near Conway, there are the various towns of Sandwich. There is an East Sandwich, Center Sandwich and plain Sandwich. Can you imagine if we ever move here? The Pickles of Sandwich, New Hampshire. The jokes would never end.
After nearly two days here, the one thing we have not seen are WalMarts nor Amazon fleets…big, little, electric or gas powered. The Dollar General Store looks to blend in, either an old white washed wooden structure or a new building made to look old. We have seen more of a throw back to our childhood, family stores, business that proudly claim 100 or more years in business. Coming from Houston, it is as if we had walked back in time. I can imagine in places like these, Meredith in particular, families have grown up coming to these places in the summer. Think Dirty Dancing, without Patrick Swazye. Simple things that create the vivid tapestry of our memories. It is kind of like Nantucket (no ferry needed), but a local secret that they don’t share. Chat GPT knows all the cool places.
So, for the question of the day. What do Chat GPT, Xfinity (previously known as Comcast), and Cheryl’s Cookies have in common? About 9 months ago, after much effort on labor’s part to get a new line drop from the Xfinity post (front yard, right hand side of driveway) under the driveway, across the yard to the west side of the house. The old line was just not doing it. We had distorted pictures that their technicians knew was their problem, not ours. I spoke to the Chat bot (virtual assistant and CG nasty relative, we all have a few). I had been in line for live agents, visited the website, went through the app, been to the store so many times, I am sure the employees thought I had a thing for the Manager. I even got the store’s only secret phone numbers list to get a live person every time. Nope, the service guys never made it to our house at the appointment time to fix the problem. Meanwhile, back on Lakeshore Villa, all the various fiber optic and cell internet providers have dug up our yard, and blocked the traffic on our street. I, finally, with Management’s blessing, changed our internet provider to Tachus. You need to understand, Eddie loved his X1 remote, he had almost 20 years of experience with their TV guide and during the pandemic learned how to access each new platform as it was added. He loved whispering “Netflix or KPRC” into the X1 remote. But we were paying a fortune to watch pixelated TV. The learning curve was steep. We needed a Live TV provider, we were reduced to the LG TV remote that has green tape holding the battery faceplate in place…never mind the Sound Amp remote. Yeah, I know there are unifying remotes that can be purchased And programmed. We have done that, did not satisfy management. So for nine months, we gave Tachus and Hulu Live a shot. Funny, we now have different problems. Their Net Meshing system was not right or strong enough for our house….we now have a Netgear mesher. The other brand had a back door for China to gather information…perish the thought…there is even a Congressional hearing about it, so it must be bad. We changed all the various variables numerous times and we were still not happy with the quality and ease of service. When Tachus asked how old our TV was (2017) and said were probably needed a new TV…Management almost lost his mind. So, one day I put all the events into my buddy Chat GPT and asked it to compose a letter to Comcast (corporate level stuff) outlining our service issues and the fact we would like to return to Xfinity…for better or worse, until death do us part. Also, asked CG to give me the President of Comcast email address to send my letter. CG polished my hostile letter thoughts for sure. I pushed send on Tuesday afternoon after the close of business in New York. By 9:00 Wednesday morning, I am on the phone with a corporate VP asking me when the District Manager, District Service Technician and some Engineer could come to my house and see about getting us back to the Xfinity fold. Fast forward, yeah, we are back with the Dark Overlord of the Internet. I have had to pry the storage box of coax and Ethernet cables that were conveniently located on the top of the garage cabinets and throw said contents in trash. Eddie is still in mourning. Apparently while we were gone, the coax cable got fatter and can handle the high speed that is coming in. Think water hose coax versus fire hose coax. Everything is Wi-Fi now, no hard wire, but after several Saturdays with our new friends, our house is so well constructed that a steady Wi-Fi signal is not a sure thing. We are actually hard wired. The engineer said we might need a new TV or sound amp if we went totally wireless. In a minor miracle, Eddie has said No, and has not even shopped online for either. So, while there was not a pre nup signed, we are married to Xfinity until we leave the Lake or they carry us out in pine boxes. I, also, have a stack of business cards for all the folks up the ladder, my Plan B. My local Xfinity store manager even showed me where our accounts has a special note on it that says my dealings should be with an Assistant Manager or Manager. So, the Cheryl’s Cookies. Eddie has had informed delivery from all the regulars to include USPS, UPS, FedEx, Amazon. For days he had been getting info on a delivery from Cheryl’s Cookies. Mother’s Day…Lauren knows better, George would have offered to cook me dinner. We scratched our heads. Tuesday afternoon before we leave, the package of a three boxes of cookies (thank you tower) arrives on our doorstep. Thank you card from the President of Xfinity. Yup…make AI a friend…it has its benefits.
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