Lunch at Mt Washington Hotel

After Sunday Service and saying good bye at Twin Mountain Baptist Church , we went on the Mt. Washington Hotel for lunch in the Stickney Cafe' . It was a good cobb salad , but an even better dessert. Since the main Dining Room required men to be in jackets, we were unable to lunch there, which actually saved us money! We are still saving room and money for Maine lobster!

Joseph Stickney, a railroad magnate, began construction of the hotel in 1900 with granite quarried on the grounds and steel structure with stucco. Two hundred fifty Italian men were brought in from Italy, New York City and Boston to do the construction. It opened to the public in 1902.

The hotel is rich in history but is best known for hosting the International Monetary Conference of July 1 - 22, 1944. This Conference established the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the gold standard at $35. per ounce, and the value of other countries' currencies to the US dollar. There were 44 countries represented with 650 attendees. They housed at least 1000 people using every room including broom closets!

After lunch we spent another hour there walking around the main lobby , watching people check into the hotel , and looking into the conservatory and conference rooms while reading the history as posted on the walls. The ballroom was quite large but was not open today. There is an indoor swimming pool and an outdoor pool is also being built. There is gift shops and a lounge and grille in the basement known as The Cave, which is open in the evenings. We also took pictures from some of the 900 feet of veranda where we could see the playground, the golf course , ski slopes for the resort and the surrounding mountains. You can see a little more color change since the all day and night heavy rain here yesterday.

We even had some affect from the rain inside our motorhome because a small stuffed Sesame figure which got caught in the slide as it was going out leaving a small break in the seal. So we had rain inside some and are trying to get the carpet dried out today. Needless to say we will double check to make sure nothing is in the way when operating the slides in the future!!

Hopefully the rain is over and that it might be over in Maine when we get there.