Rosario

We love Rosario. We just can't help it. Built in the same era as Rockefeller's Acadia days, it has a similar feel to the Jordan Pond House. The walls of the old Rosario Mansion are covered with photos from its heyday in the early-1900's and my imagination is alive with vivid images of the folks who spent time here. We especially love the old swimming pool in the basement. After a week on the water, and with cooler weather settling in, we couldn't help but daydream of a swim in the salt water pool, a warm-up in the hot tub and a free, as-long-as-we-want, hot shower. Being travelers where showers are few and far between, we really cherish any time we can take a longer-than-four minute shower with no interruptions. A normal shower goes like this: insert coin, lather hair as fast as possible and rinse, at which point the first two minutes are up and the shower turns off. Stand in shower shivering, applying conditioner and lathering everything else. Once everything is sufficiently lathered, drop second coin in and rinse clean during the last two minutes of the shower. Very efficient but not super satisfying. We're not saying we need super long showers, just maybe eight to ten warm minutes, uninterrupted.

We arrived at Rosario with enough time to fulfill our hearts' desires. We spent enough time in the pools to wither my feet into super-uncomfy prunes and we emerged from the experience delightfully clean and hungry. Jason and I haven't had a date since we left home six weeks ago so we took this opportunity snuggle up on one of the velvet couches in the dark, swanky lounge while the boys played games in the boat. When we were done we sent the boys a text and they joined us for a delicious dinner in the dining room. It's pretty awesome having teenagers.

One of the cool things about Rosario is that a trail leading to the top of the Mount Constitution starts there. Round-trip, I think it is about twelve steep miles. We cheated and called a taxi to deliver us up to the Little Summit trailhead, bypassing the steepest four miles. From there we hiked two miles to the top of Mount Constitution for spectacular views. After hanging at the top for a while we hiked six miles back down the mountain to our boat and Rosario. We got back just in time for Jason and I to go on one more date before the kids joined us again for another yummy dinner.

The following morning was sunny so we took advantage of the vacationy games on Rosario's grounds. We had some grueling rounds of tether ball followed by a riveting game of shuffle board. After lunch we contentedly set sail for our next destination.

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