Keene to Portsmouth

This morning I drove out to Portsmouth on the New Hampshire coast. I made a brief stop on the way to photograph Lower Purgatory Falls. At the time I left, the air quality was again in the dangerous range from the Canada fires. Of course that also made for a strange sky, with some odd colored light filtering through. By the time I arrived in Portsmouth, the air quality had at least improved to moderate and I felt I could walk around outside without a mask.

I checked into the Sheraton Portsmouth Harborside. (Marriott acquired the Sheraton brand some time ago) I splurged a bit on this hotel as pretty much everything is concentrated in the downtown and I wanted to be able to walk to most of my destinations. That is one lesson I have learned from other locations. Sometimes the city center hotels are prohibitive, at least for my budget this year, but if the price is just a bit more, it is well worthwhile for the convenience and time savings. My newly minted Marriott Ambassador status yet again netted me a top floor suite. This one is also split level and has two bedrooms and two bathrooms on the upper level, as well as a full kitchen, dining area and living area on the bottom level. It could easily sleep a family of four. The fourth floor even has its own dedicated elevator. Although the stairs are a bit ironic because of my sore legs from yesterday’s hike.

After settling in, I headed out into town. Although Portsmouth is a bigger town than Keene, it is no less adorable. It is completely walkable with great shops, galleries and restaurants. My first stop was the N.W. Barrett Gallery . They have upscale crafts and high end jewelry on the first floor and a rotating art exhibit on the second floor. Much of the art was of local scenes; it is always interesting for me to see how local artists capture their environment.

I then walked over to MONA, the Museum of New Art . This was an eclectic exhibition that included some paintings, some sculpture and some photography. I was particularly intrigued with the photos of the salt piles from Granite State Minerals . The company and the salt piles are located directly on the harbor. I can see them from my window. Unfortunately, not only is everything behind cyclone fences, all of the salt piles are covered with plastic, apparently to protect them from the wind and rain in between deliveries. So I probably won’t be able to access that particular photo-op.

In addition to the salt mining, which means that large cranes are a permanent part of the landscape, the harbor is also a busy port. So it is hardly pristine. Most unfortunate, though, is that the few parts of the waterfront that are not sequestered by Granite State Minerals, are still privately owned, either by waterfront restaurants or shipping or cruise operations. That means that there is no public access to the waterfront from downtown. It looks like there is public access a little bit further South, which I will check out tomorrow.

Before concluding this post, I feel compelled to relate a conversation I had with Amy, who was manning the front desk at MONA. We were talking about the decrease in diversity that occurs moving from South to North in the U.S. Really it is more of a diagonal, moving from the SouthWest to the NorthEast. New England is one of the least diverse regions in the U.S, perhaps in the whole of North America. To paraphrase, Amy suggested that the cultural “authenticity” should take precedence over diversity. (As I assume she will read this post, she is welcome to correct me if I have misrepresented her comments) She believes that New England has a certain character - conferred upon it by the original White European settlers - that would be disturbed by an influx of racially diverse people. This did not sit well with me, but it took some time to process. When I related the comment to my friend C. later in the evening, her reaction was that if you follow that thought to its logical conclusion, the land should be returned to the indigenous peoples who inhabited it for tens of thousands of years prior to any European settlement. That pithy response struck a chord with me, especially in light of all of the history I have learned over the last half year, and the civil and human rights themes that have become central to this journey.

Tomorrow I will continued to explore Portsmouth as there is quite a lot more to see just wishing walking distance of my lodgings.