Day 35 - Acrobats, Trained Bears, Train Ride, Wolfman - It All Ended With a Hike

---

Today was advertised as the warm and sunny day by the weatherman last night, but I'm afraid he and I have differences on what warm and sunny means. It was in the upper 50"s when we got up, but by the time we had another of Chef Paulette's delicious breakfasts and hit the road by 9:30, it had warmed to the lower 60's. Today we were heading north to Franconia Notch, but we planned on taking the old Route 3 instead of the more efficient I-93.

Route 3, also called the Daniel Webster Highway is just a wonderful road, winding through the mountains, it used to be the main thoroughfare for trips to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Most of the attractions remaining date back to the 20's and 30's and are places I visited with my family as a child. Route 3 also has some of the old hotels and cabins left over from that time. It also passes through Ashton, Plymouth, Woodstock, and Lincoln that are quaint, picturesque New Hampshire towns that look like they haven't changed much over the years. It was a wonderful ride, and one I had done several times in the past in a car, but always wanted to do on a motorcycle. The weather continued to warm a little into the upper 60's and the sun came out, so it made for an almost perfect ride.

The first attraction we encountered was Clark's Trading Post, a family owned business for over 80 years. It has expanded a little with waterslides, bumper boats, and Segways, but most of the place is just as I remembered as a child. We arrived around 10:00 and checked the schedule of performances. The three most important things we wanted to see was the acrobatic act, the trained bears, and the train ride. It was just too cold for us to try any of the water attractions. The acrobatic act was scheduled for 11:00 so we had about an hour to check through the various museums. The first place we stopped at was Merlin's Mystical Mansion. We had no idea what to expect, but it turned out to be a motion simulator where we sat in seats down the middle, and the room rotated around us. There was lots of darkness and lights to try and make it spooky, and it was really just a lot of fun.

From there, the museums had an eclectic sort of collection of various artifacts. There were cars, and old horse drawn fire pumpers, and lots of product memorabilia from Moxie, and old sarsaparilla drink that I loved as a child. They even had a Moxie Car where the driver actually sat on what looked like a horse and drove the car while riding a horse. It looked like the Moxie forerunner to the famous Oscar Meyer Weinermobile. There were collections of antique cameras, typewriters, phonographs, light bulbs, and various electronic test equipment. There were toys and games, guns, train memorabilia, and more things than I can remember. It was interesting to see these things, most have been collected over the years that Clark's has been in business.

By now it was 10:45, and the seats for the arena were beginning to fill for the acrobatic show. We were able to get front row seats, but they were on the lower level which is behind a chain link fence. By the time we figured out that the upper seats did not have a fence in front of them which would make for better pictures, everything was too full. So we decide to stay put for the acrobats and move to the upper level for the trained bears. There were 3 Chinese acrobats, the first did contortionist stuff with folder herself in and out of a barrel. The second did balancing and spinning stuff with her feet. First she did a large ceramic pot, and then she moved on to a table. She was really good and was really able to spin and toss the table up into the air. The third was a guy, and he did spinning stuff with his arms and hands, ending up with a steel rod with fire on both ends. They were all really good, but the fourth was not Chinese, but looked eastern European and she started with a hula hoop act, spinning multiple hoops while standing on her hands and spinning hoops on her feet. But then she reappeared as a balancing act, showing immense strength and balance while hand standing.

The show ended at 11:30, and we looked as most of the people left. With the trained bear show starting at 12:00, we decided to make a beeline for the upper deck and managed to score a couple of front row seats. We just played on our phone and waited for the 12:00 bear show. The show started promptly at 12:00 and the place was really packed. The grandson of the original owner and his sister still run the bear show. Supposedly, there are still 20 members of the extended family doing work around the park. The bears are all raised from cubs, mostly rescued from abandonment or some other issue. They live in the family home as pets and are trained along the way. When they get too old to perform, they are retired away across the street and live out the rest of their lives away from the tourists.

They brought out the first bear, a full grown 309 pound male. He actually stands, sits in a chair, and plays basketball. All tricks are rewarded with ice cream, and it was obvious that these bears were well treated and were trained with reward rather than punishment. The second bear was a little younger at only 7 years old and weighed 272 pounds. She did similar tricks and also rode a scooter. It was really impressive to see what the bear could do, but what was more impressive was to see the interaction between the bear and his trainers and the obvious affection between them. They were really more pets than performers.

At the end of the bear performance, they held the 12:30 train ride until 12:40 so that the people who had just watched the bears could catch the train. We managed to find a seat, as I never pass up an opportunity to ride a train. As I remembered, it's only a short ride of a couple of miles up the road, but somehow, I forgot all about the Wolfman. As we passed the final building and into the woods, this one eyed, long haired, bearded mountain man appeared with a shotgun driving a rusty old race car - The Wolfman. His voice was piped into the train speakers and he was yelling at the passengers that they were trespassing on his property. For the rest of the ride, hew would yell at the passengers, then get in his car and race through the woods to reappear at another location and yell some more. He fired his shotgun, threatened to blow us up with his bomb that didn't work, and generally harassed us all. The kids on the train loved it! On the way back he did more of the same, eventually trying to fire a rocket at the train. It was all great fun and everyone really enjoyed it.

At the end of the train ride, we decided that we had better get going if we were going to make it to the Flume this afternoon. We had seen most of what we wanted at Clark's Trading Post, there was more too see, but most of what we skipped was for children. We had a little sprinkle while we in the bear show, but the skies were looking good now, so we hopped on the bike and headed up the road to Franconia Notch State Park and to the Flume Gorge in particular. The Flume is a gorge in Franconia Notch which is deep but fairly narrow. The platforms and walkways are all wooden and it ends with with a waterfall called Avalanche Falls. The hiking path is particularly steep and goes up and down multiple times along the way. We decided to take the long way back which was a 1.2 mile hike past smaller Liberty Gorge and a place called The Pool. It was nice to be out hiking again, and by the time we made it back to the Visitors Center we were tired.

We were trying to decide whether to stop at the snack bar, when the sky opened up and it began to pour. So we decided coffee and a snack would be a great idea while we waited out the rain. So we hung around for about a half hour waiting for the rain to clear and checking the radar on our phones. By 3:30, the skies had cleared once again, but we put on our rainsuits just in case. It was an easy 1 hour ride back to the house on I-93 and all we saw were a few sprinkles along the way. For dinner, Kevin fired up the grill and we had hot dogs and hamburgers and some of Paulette's world famous macaroni and cheese.

Tomorrow, the weather doesn't look too promising, but the weathermen haven't been doing very well in predicting, so we plan to head over to the Kancamagus Highway, a scenic road across New Hampshire and take some pictures along the way. From there, we head to the Mount Washington Auto Road and hope to drive the bike to the top of Mount Washington. We will need to dress warmly as the temperature at the top of Mount Washington is supposed to be in the 30's.

107.7 Miles Today

5395.8 Miles Total

3.371 Gallons Today

135.631 Gallons Total

---