Orange You Glad...? (Another Not-Very-Secret Space)

The Keene Pumpkin Festival isn't a secret.  It's not even really its own space, and it could be argued that it's not even a hidden gem, exactly.

What it is, is orange.  More orange than you can shake a stick at.  Orange as far as the eye can see.  Orange until you just can't orange no more. 

Keene prides itself on having the widest Main Street in the world (I googled, and can find any number of real estate and travel sites attesting to this, but am not motivated and conscientious enough to actually research and link it).  Every October, this Main Street is lined, to unreasonable heights, with carved pumpkins on scaffolding.  It's a breathtaking abundance of squash.

We lived in Keene for four years, from 2001 to 2005.  Each year, we attended the Pumpkin Festival, partly because I try to actually do the touristy stuff in the town I inhabit, instead of just sending weekend guests there, and partly because it really is a great way to spend a fall day in New Hampshire.  There are costume contests and a parade for the kids, food booths and crafts galore, and just the kind of smiley, neighborly, community bonding that one hears about, but rarely actually sees.  The kind of event that lets you believe that perhaps Norman Rockwell wasn't just making it all up.  New Englanders are, in general, a taciturn and private bunch, but we do put on a good fair or festival.

I was a grad student the whole time we lived there, so I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the secret crannies and nooks of Keene, but there are a few others I thought I'd share, assuming you're there for long enough to let the scent of pumpkin fade. 

There are many nice little playgrounds and parks, with my personal favorite being Ashuelot Park, near downtown.  No playground equpiment, but nice little trails and bridges and fields.  Wheelock Park was a nice walk from our house, and an even quicker sprint home for paper towels and Band-Aids when your two-year-old happens to just walk off the end of one of the playground bits.  Guess how I know.

The shopping was disappointing when I was there, though from what I understand it has improved tremendously with the addition of an enormous, soulless strip mall sort of complex out Route 9.  But back in my day, just after we stopped having to walk uphill, both ways, through snow this deep, there were two types of shopping: high-end, precious, not-quite-child-friendly shoppes in the Colony Mill, or cheap plastic crap at Walmart. 

The dining was decidedly better.  There were a few very nice, high-end restaurants; Luca's was a bit more gracious and accommodating than Nicola's, and neither was child-friendly, but sometimes that's the whole point.  There were a high number of family-friendly establishments, courtesy of a college town, and The Stage's Tuesday night pasta specials ($8 for a salad, plate of pasta - and not just red sauce, but all sorts of fabulous dishes - and dish of gelato) were to die for.  Or, at the very least, to salivate profusely for.

It's a nice little town, Keene.  Too far from everything else, no big cities within a two-hour drive, no ethnic diversity to speak of, a tendency to be buried in snow and then to flood a bit afterward... we won't be moving back there.  But it was nice while it lasted, and I'm glad we had the chance to get to know it a little. 

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To be cross-posted at One More Thing sometime. Maybe. If my mother-in-law stops being so postworthy.

Comments

[Fairly Odd Mother]

We almost went to see the pumpkins last year---it looks so very cool. Maybe this year?

[T with Honey]

I've been tempted to go previous years to see all those jack-o-lanterns. Maybe now that Princess is older and would enjoy it a little more it will seem worth the drive.

[Pattie]

OMG.... I spent my childhood summers at the JackO'Lantern resort in Keene, NH! Never been to the pumpkin festival, though.

[Pattie]

Back again... now that I think of it, I think that resort was closer to the White Mountains...maybe Lincoln or Woodstock? Anyway, I guess I got a bit excited about the pumkin thing....

:-)