Yesterday the plan was to spend some time Christmas shopping in North Conway, and to spend some quality time in the hot tub.  Instead we went on yet another ridiculously huge drive.  Jen wanted to go North.  She’s always wanted to go North of the White Mountains, but it takes us around three hours to get that far, we don’t have the energy to go on for another three hours.  Since we were already in the mountains we figured what the hell, and pointed the car North.

After wandering aimlessly for a while we decided to head toward Pittsburgh.  My step kids go there with the father and step mother roughly once a year to try and see Moose.  The kids have told me many times that Pittsburgh is the largest town in New Hampshire, although only in terms of area.  In terms of population… well… not so much.  Just as we were reaching Pittsburgh we started seeing signs for Canadian Customs checkpoints and border crossings.  We also saw signs for towns in Vermont.  We actually detoured a little just so we could say that we went to Vermont, but we didn’t actually do anything there.  We never made it to Canada.  I don’t have a passport, and Jen didn’t have hers with her, so we weren’t going to be able to cross in anyway.  We got as far as a sign that said Canada was 26 miles away.

The most interesting surprise on this drive was that we passed through Dixville Notch, NH.  You have heard of that place.  In fact, it got national news coverage last month.  Dixville, NH is the first town in the United States to close its polls on election night, and therefore they are the first town to release its election results to the press.  They only have about 20 registered voters, and they all meet in a hotel at midnight on election day.  They each have a personal voting booth, and they all cast their vote and have them counted within a couple of minutes.  This is legal for them to do because they verify 100% participation.  Otherwise they would not be able to close the polls so quickly.

Anyway, we were driving through this particularly terrifying little mountain pass when we saw a gigantic hotel and a welcome to Dixville Notch sign.  I had to pull over and take a picture.  The hotel is called Balsams and it instantly overshadowed the whole election thing.  Look at these pictures and tell me that this isn’t the most haunted hotel on Earth.  The Overlook hotel from The Shining has nothing on this place.

It turns out that this is actually the place where the residents do their voting.  Can you imagine?  It must be terrifying in there!  There is no way that this place isn’t haunted.  Every Hollywood movie cliche tells me that there are at least 500 ghosts in those buildings and at least 10% of them are the ghosts of psychotic axe murderers.

Enjoy your stay, and happy voting!

Are you ready for the worst part? The hotel is closed for renovations. There is probably a guy, a caretaker, living in that hotel right now. He’s probably writing a novel about how all work and no play make Jack a something something, and he’s probably shuffling up to the bar to talk to the bartender who hasn’t been there for 50 years.

Creepy!