Eating Out: Claremont: Ramunto's Brick Oven Pizza

I had some of the best pizza I've ever had today at Ramunto's Brick Oven Pizza in Claremont. That is to say, my experience of this fairly clean, aesthetically pleasing pizzeria with pleasant waitstaff was a surprise and made a rainy day a little more enjoyable. I smelled something wonderful as I walked in, so I knew that had to be a good sign.

There are a several creative pizza and pasta dishes available. The pizza is a little expensive but not if you share it with another person.

We had the reasonably sized Four Cheese Pizza, which is made with four very obviously different kinds of cheese, a feature you'd think would be common in Four Cheese Pizzas but isn't. Not just different flavors but different textures, including feta.



When the waitress heard that I thought it was the best pizza I'd ever had, she looked a little uncomfortable. Maybe it's not the best ever, maybe I just thought it was because it's better than a lot of pizza I've tried to eat (and I have eaten some pretty awful food lately due to my lack of an oven or range top)and I was pretty hungry, is that better?

Actually, it appears that they're a chain. So the pizza at other franchises might not be as good. And the fact that it's a chain means this whole "it was awesome" thing might be a fluke. But it also means I might not have to go all the way to Claremont to get more (great, because it doesn't reheat any better than any other brand of pizza). It's a toss up.

Claremont in the rain

The Claremont Chamber of Commerce building is one of the most beautiful in the downtown. I've wanted to photograph their etched glass chandelier, antique molding, twisting dark wood stairs and stained glass windows since the first time I randomly wandered in there.





This time I ducked in due to an freak thunderstorm (glad I brought my Nicole Miller umbrella).



This is some kind of Real Estate office, but I just loved the windows.


I saw an 18 inch doll sized park bench in a second hand bookstore. I asked the owner where she got it, and she told me "Nana's Attic". When I met up with the other person I was traveling with, she had also been to a store called "Nana's Treasures".

So I had her drop me off there while she went off to do some other things (I would've walked but I was starting to Not Feel Well).

Nana's Treasures is kinda...big. It's three floors, apparently, although I only saw the main floor. It's just endless piles of weird junk. Some of it genuine antiques, some of it collectibles, some of it adorable kitsch, and some of it horrifying and tacky...



But I found plenty of things I wanted to take home, two miniature glass vases, a doll for one of my dolls, and a yellow/gold brocade clutch for myself.

We didn't get to see any awesome foliage, but you can tell the leaves are at least starting to turn.

My family spent a night and two days up in Colebrook, NH, which I will talk more about when I do the food reviews.



Our motel room was in the back, which gave us an incredible view of the mountains. The
rooms themselves were small (really small) but reasonably clean, safe, and had cable and free WiFi.





A bridge from Vermont into NH.





Chutters,in Littleton, the longest candy counter EVER.



I hadn't realized licorice came in so many flavors besides "black" and "red". Too bad I don't really like licorice.




I will post reviews of the places we ate in a couple of days.

Kaya's Colebrook adventure

A Terrible Photo of the Morlocks: Exeter UFO Festival

I'd blame the weather. The Exeter UFO Festival wasn't as big or exciting as I'd hoped (or was promised) it'd be. But 1)the area was expecting a hurricane and 2) we got there in the evening, which means according to the schedule we mostly missed all the lectures, sidewalk sales and etc. Even the hotdog cart in Swazey Parkway had gone home.

We went to The Ioka lunch counter to find something to eat. It's under new management now, the "Save the Ioka" campaign was successful in that regard, although it has not yet been turned back into a real movie theater. It's just a snack bar with what I have to believe is the world's smallest nightclub downstairs (I briefly worked at The Ioka once, I've seen it). Prices are reasonable, but our pretzels took an oddly long time to arrive. However, they were also huge, so that sort of made up for it. It seemed like the staff wanted to close up and go home too.




Before we stopped at The Ioka, we tried to go on the "self guided UFO tour". You get a map of the area, with the sites of alien spottings marked, and you drive around to them. In theory, that's how it works. In practice, not so much. The map is unhelpful, if you're starting from downtown Exeter you have to sort of hold it diagonally. General areas are marked, but there are no indications of how many miles or feet you should proceed for and many of the smaller backroads are not named at all on the map. There are no signs up at the actual sites to tell you when you've found them, either.

I told the person I was with, as we drove around the rapidly darkening woods that pretty much all looked like it could be the scene of alien visitations, that it's a good thing I'm from the area or we would've ended up spending the night out there, maybe eaten by wild animals.

"Or abducted by aliens," she said. There is definitely a feeling on Route 88 that weird things could happen, and unlike fairies, aliens are probably not bothered by suburban subdivisions (it doesn't help the tour that the roads have changed a bit from when the original sightings took place). We didn't have time to see if the other route was any better.





The dance wasn't as well attended as last time. Once again, I'd chalk that up to the weather. The storm was a disappointment, it barely rained, but by the time everyone realized it wasn't going to be so bad, they'd probably already adjusted their weekend plans. The age groups between fourteen and forty were also severely under represented this time. It's hard to know why, other than the festival organizers must have made some kind of decision that resulted in young adults and people my age deciding that the dance wasn't worth their time this year.




There were marionettes, and some amazing hula hoop work by various people, and a hobbit danced with an alien. I wasn't able to dance but I did enjoy listening to the music, provided by The Morlocks, a New England based band that has been together since 1965.



And a terrible, TERRIBLE photo of The Morlocks

the non storm

Photos from Star Island

(the stairs leading down to the lower deck on our boat)

(the fourth oldest yatcht club in the country)







The John Smith Memorial