Old Salt and a Young Woman

Yesterday, MeAsWe and Me headed up to Hampton Beach for a friends 60th birthday. The birthday was at Old Salt Eating and Drinking Place in Lamies Inn.  The core of the inn was built in 1740 and acquired by the Lane family, which kept it in the family until 1911. The Inn has been a regular stop for presidential candidates in New Hampshire, including Dwight Eisenhower that stayed here for a couple of days in the 60's.

I walked around outside snapping off some shots, even one with MeAsWe struggling with the snow and ice laden sidewalks. I walked in the street, forcing the cars more to the center. The one problem with my path was the lack of a shoveled entrance from the street to the sidewalk. As I walked up the street I watched this one lady in a Cadillac texting someone not realizing the light had turned green and continue her furious pecking away at the keyboard as everyone patiently waited to complete the task at hand. I did grab a picture, but after she realized she was holding up traffic. Nice sneer she gave me.





I found an entrance into Old Salt and was blown away by the number of people waiting to get in. There was a line to get into line, which doesn't include the line to get food. You would think it was an Easter Sunday or some other holiday. Nope just Sunday Brunch at Old Salt.

The line to get into line which does not include the food line

Crappy picture that kind of works in black and white, eh ?

Old Salt has this Sunday Brunch that without a doubt is the best buffet breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner I have ever had. Not cheap, but worth the experience. Walking to where the partiers would be seated you are greeted by the food folks.

Some are friendly and all smiles.

still getting use to back button focus....my excuse for this one being soft.

Some look at you like they want to carve you up, in a friendly manner thou. Note the thumps up.

This room has the folks that want some libations to go with their meals.



At buffets I tend to try to sample everything in a wanton manner, piling stuff on the plate, disregarding calories, absolute no compassion for my heart and if I die at the end of the consumption phase, well at least I didn't die hungry. Another advantage of this method, if you don't like something, just push it off to the side and go back and get something else. You have to get a clean plate anyways.

So what did I fill my plate with. Let's see; bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, hash, some kind of potatoes that were smashed, Chicken Florentine, a beef stew. There wasn't  one thing that wasn't great. Went back for seconds, and did some more Florentine, a blueberry crepe, sausage (there was just something special about this), some more of the beef stew stuff. I probably consumed at least  50% of my calories for the week in this one sitting.



This really was about Pat's Birthday, here she is coming into the room and Andy (her husband) actually pulled this off as a surprise.



I am generally uncomfortable and out of my element photographing people. I simply don't know what to do, how to balance the photo, post process them, what to add, what to subtract,the subject moves creating blurry photos, etc etc. We got to sit with this little girl that simply made it easy to pull off a shot. Meet Joyce.



Joyce's brother and cousins also make great subjects.



There was alot of conversation, laughing, some crying, kids running around (Old Salt had a wonderful dessert table chock full of sugar), stories about growing up, and even a presentation of Pat's life. It was a great party and really good to get out of the house and go someplace other than Hannaford's. Thank you Andy for inviting us. This started out as simply a story about a Frozen River, but I decided to separate the two stories. Stay tuned for the next part.