Contoontook

Contoontook Contoocook, NH

Contoocook, NH We left our Vt residence at 10am, en route for Contoocook, New Hampshire…We made great time, the landscape of this part of the country is beautiful. We were within 2 miles of our new home, when encountered a covered bridge that was only 9 foot 9 inches tall. So, I drove past it a little ways and pullover, and consulted a map. While looking at these little roads, I decided to call the campground and ask for directions. While speaking with the very nice lady there, a guy in a pickup truck pulls along side of us and asks if we were ok. I told him about the covered bridge, and we were looking for an alternative route. He said, to turn around , go over the dam, and make a right and that would put us on course. So we confirmed with this with the campground lady, and we were there in 10 minutes. Moral of the story, our Garmin is a truckers/RV gps, that is not supposed to route us to low bridges, (we are 13 feet 4-inches tall) , but to find out, this bridge just came into operation this year… As a side note, part of my route planning, the night before we depart each location, I enter the address in both the Garmin and google maps to verify the route. Then I compare that route on a laminated trucker atlas, to verify low bridges or weight restrictions. This bridge was not listed. The campground, Shady Beach is an Encore park and was nice. Lots of trees, but all the real good sites taken. Out of about 190 sites, 100 of them were seasonal campers, with their rigs and decks all set up. To be fair, we are only at any given place for a week or so, and most of that time we are not even home, as we are off exploring. But this is a theme that we were oblivious to when we first hit the road. All the campgrounds we have stayed at on this part of the journey have had allot of permanent (seasonal) campers. This limits the amount of available spaces for us “transients”. These parks have either been privately owned or a part of our Thousand Trails membership. So far we have been lucky and hope to be in the future with the campground sites we get. If all else fails we can always boondock in a Walmart parking lot! LOL.
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