Portsmouth, New Hampshire/Maine

After some testing at Boston last weekend, we headed up the coast to Portsmouth. It's a very artsy little town with tons of art shops, coffee houses, pubs, and a beautiful view of the Atlantic through the port. Lots of cool bridges connecting the various islands between the two states. It was cold and rainy, but we still got out and explored quite a bit.

We happened upon the U.S.S. Albacore, the first dual-fin propelled submarine. It has it's own little park in downtown Portsmouth near the shipyards where it was built.

This little room is the sub's office, and a
good example of how tight the quarters are.

Periscope, HO!

The control room - the boys spent a LOT of
time in here twisting knobs and pushing buttons.

Brennan trying to figure out how in the world
you could cook for 50 men in this tiny kitchen.

We popped into a few novelty shops in town, then headed down the coast. It was bitterly cold and drizzly but Christie and the boys couldn't resist getting closer to the water. A truly overwhelming feeling of being so small when you stand in a place like this. We even saw a few guys out surfing at different spots. 

That's the three of them off in the distance.

Portugal, straight ahead!

We found a little crab-shack style restaurant called Petey's right off the main road - you can see the Atlantic from the front yard, and the lobster traps they used that morning in the back. VERY fresh seafood and lots of it. The shrimp was "frozen on the boat" since it's not shrimp season, but everything else was caught that morning. Lots of clam strips, crab cakes, scallops, fish chowder, and fried shrimp. Perfect ending to our little seaside exploration.