I love all of your traditions. We come into Alton from off of Route 28. We never, ever, drive the quick way to Echo Point by taking the highway towards Wolfeboro. I swear my husband slows down the closer we get to the bay just to torture us.
I, too, sob like a baby when we leave. My husband and kids think I am nuts.
I guess our tradition is a relatively new one. Most evenings, we take the boat into the bay. My boys play mini-golf at the Blue Jay while my husband and I read the Weirs Times or one of the other free papers. Then, we get ice cream at Shibley's and walk back down to the town docks to sit, eat and look at the boats. We head for home just as the sun begins to set.
Our other tradition, if you can call it that, doesn't even involve the lake. After my husband returns to Jersey, my boys and I stay for a week or so. We always drive up to Mount Washington one day and stop at Dondero's Rock Shop in North Conway. They love that! Another day, we drive the Kancamagus Highway, stopping at the turnouts so we can take a dip in the freezing water.
I will miss it when my boys decide they are too old for mini-golf or swimming along the Kancamagus Highway or, even worse, too old to spend their vacations at the lake.
That's when it is time to retire and finally move up there once and for all.
Jersey Girl