Just some quick photos snapped out of our car window as
Certainly New Hampshire makes you believe the area could have been New Scandinavia as well with its granite rock lined highways , abundance of silver birches and greenery.
Or, New Netherlands with the rainfall we saw over the weekend!
Whatever you call it, it is beautiful up here. Everything in nature is still so green, so tender and so bright. Roads wind through the towns big and small making it necessary to be an active driver, but always giving you a new view around every twist. Many, if not most, towns still maintain a center established decades (if not a century!) ago around a white clapboard church with its soaring steeple, matching - yet modest - town hall and more recently added police station, fire station and library. It also caught our eye that many towns also had their own VFW (Veteran's of Foreign Wars) hall among the official buildings.
The majority of shops and businesses in the towns carry the names of their owners rather than that of a large national chain. Not that you can't find a Wal-mart, Target, Walgreens and so on,

While we miss the immediate warmth & a smile a Texan shared with you when you met them, I've run into many friendly people on my trips around town. Of course, there's nothing like a baby and a toddler in tow to get a stranger to talk to you, but I would say I've found the people around here open and helpful one on one.