#125 Salisbury Beach State Preserve, America’s Stonehenge and Budweiser, in Merrimack, NJ

We arrived at Salisbury Beach State Preserve on Monday afternoon. The weather was warm and humid. We backed in to our spot and realized that we should have dumped our tanks before backing in. So Frank pulled out and dumped, while I visited with Alice and Don who had arrived around noon. By the time we re-parked the RV and got all set up it was after 3 pm. We rested for little bit and took off to Exeter, NH where Gidget had a Vet’s appointment. She has a mast cell tumor on her chest that we are going to have removed. The Vet had to see her before her scheduled surgery. Of course, we didn’t know where Exeter, NH was or where the Brentwood Animal Hospital was located in Exeter, so we took off about 4 pm for her 5 pm appointment. We knew it was 22 miles away, but were unsure of traffic and of getting lost. The good ole GPS took us right to the office. But, coming home it took us a different route. We’re still confused.

After Gidget was examined we found two more tumors, and her surgery is scheduled for Thursday!

On Tuesday we woke up to rain. It rained all day, so we just stayed around the RV and tried to stay dry. The only trip we made was to pick up mail in the little town of Salisbury. The post office and a diner share the same front door, so we stopped at the diner and had lunch while waiting for the PO to open. They close the PO for an hour during lunch!

Wednesday we were treated to a fairly nice day and two of the tall ships that are going to be docked and open for tours on the weekend, sailed into the Merrimack River. This was quite a treat to see them maneuvering in and tying up at the dock.

The first ship is the Peacemaker and the second ship is the Kalmar Nykel.

When I say it was a fairly nice day, I mean it wasn’t raining. As you can see in the pictures we had lots of clouds.

Thursday morning we got up early and headed back to Exeter, NH to drop off Gidget for her surgery. She had to stay all day, so we decided to see a couple of sights in NH.

First we drove to Salem, NH and visited the Stonehenge of America. It is really back in the woods, but very interesting. It is a large collection of buildings and walls all made out of large stones. It has been carbon dated back 4,000 years. It was also used during the time of the underground railroad to hide runaway slaves on their way to Canada and freedom.

Entry into one of the stone buildings.

Inside one of the cave like structures. This one has a secret “bed” where one person could lie hidden and observe what was going on in the big room.

This was called a table top or roof rock.

This slab of rock was used for sacrifices. I guess they know that because of the groove all around the edge.

This was interesting, but back in the woods and there were lots of mosquitoes and bugs. Standing water everywhere because of all the rain. We didn’t stay long, besides it was getting close to lunch time and our next stop was the Budweiser Brewery!

Our first stop at the Merrimack, NH Budweiser Plant, was the horse stables. Now this is what a stable should look like!!

Well, Reggie was having a little snack,

Duffy liked having his picture taken,

but, Charlie, was just laying down on the job. It was nap time and he is the big boy of the team, weighing in around 2,300 lbs!

A shot stop at the wagons before we go on the tour.

The wagons are beautiful, and the signs tell the story of how they are used.

All this beer and this is the smallest of the Budweiser Breweries. If I remember correctly, each one of these tanks holds 31,000 gallons of beer.

Today the plant was bottling Bud Light long necks.

The famous Eagle Logo.

The tasting room was almost empty. We were the 1:30 tour and there were only 10 of us on the tour. Each of us got to sample two different kinds of beer. (I had a diet coke)

The man at the bar was an employee. He is 33 days away from retirement and had a lot of nice things to say about working here.

By the time we were through with the tour we had a call from the Vet’s. Gidget had four tumors removed and she was recovering nicely. She would be ready to leave about 4:00 pm. So we headed back to Exeter to get her and take her home.

By the time we got back to the RV we found out it had been raining almost all day at the park. We were fortunate that we didn’t get rained on during all our tours.