On Rainy Days
And how to love them. Really.
I woke up this morning to the soft patter of rain outside, let the dogs out, and went straight back to bed. Windows open. Just to hear it.
That’s the trick of rain here, the windows open part. You don’t shut the house up against it the way you might in a city, where rain means puddles and umbrellas and getting your shoes wet on the way to the train. Here it means something closer to permission. To stay in bed a little longer. To let the dogs come back in soaked and smelling like, well, wet dog, and decide that’s a fair trade for the version of morning you just had.
If your time in the Lakes Region is short, a rainy day is the enemy. I understand that completely. You came for the blue and the green and the white wake behind a boat, and you should get it. But if you live here, or if you’re here for the whole season, rain stops being an inconvenience and starts being something you find yourself hoping for. Praying for, even, depending on the year. Last spring it rained every weekend for fifteen weeks straight, and even I, a person who likes rain more than is reasonable, was done with it by week six. This year we’re starting the summer in a real deficit, with 14 inches needed over the next 6 weeks if we’re to escape this drought. So the grown-up part of me wants every drop we can get.
The romantic part of me wants it for entirely different reasons.
Rain is what makes the butterfly bush outside my home office window go from pretty to ridiculous, this enormous green thing that on sunny days hums with bees and dragonflies and butterflies all at once, like it’s running its own small airport and market all at once. My landscaping otherwise is nothing to brag about. If you’re picturing Grey Gardens, you’re closer than I’d like to admit; we’re somewhere between that and the Jungle Book, and my homeownership skills apparently prove the adage that the cobblers kids go barefoot. But the bush doesn’t care. The bush is thriving. And so are the bugs and birds that appreciate my negligent rewilding.
Rain also does something to the pace of the season that I notice every single time. Summer here runs at a particular speed, a kind of cheerful carnival hum, boats and ice cream and everyone trying to fit as much daylight into a day as physically possible. Rain puts a hand on that and says, gently, not today. And once you stop fighting it, a rainy day in the Lakes Region turns out to be one of the better ways to actually get to know this place, instead of just the sunny postcard version of it.
So. What to do, if you find yourself with a wet Thursday and no real plan.
Go out on the water anyway. Not the big lake, maybe, but something smaller and more forgiving. Lake Wentworth or Crescent Lake, with the Smith River connecting the two if you want a paddle that actually goes somewhere. Bring a dry change of clothes for the car, because you will be cold loading the kayaks back up, and there is nothing more humbling than driving home in a wet bathing suit while the heat fights a losing battle against your windows in June.
Lean all the way into the romance and atmosphere at Castle in the Clouds. You’ll miss some of the views it’s famous for, the ones that make it onto every postcard rack in the region. But the trail past the waterfall is, if anything, better in weather like this, all mist and damp stone and the sound of water doing what water does. And the house tour itself doesn’t care what the sky is doing. It’s Downton Abbey with mountain views, a walk through a way of living that’s entirely gone now, and somehow more of a vibe with rain on the windows.
Find a museum, or better, several. The Libby Museum is closed now, which is a real loss, but there’s still plenty here for a curious afternoon. The New Hampshire Boat Museum has locations in both Wolfeboro and Moultonborough and tells the story of this region the way almost nothing else does, through the boats people built and loved on these lakes. The Wright Museum in Wolfeboro covers the WWII home front specifically, which is a different and somehow more personal angle than most war museums take. Several of their volunteer docents were children around here in those years and adults for the subsequent wars…and they have stories. The Wolfeboro Historical Society runs the Clark Museum complex a few buildings deep into the town’s past. And nearly every town up here has its own small historical society, usually open limited hours, usually run by someone who has been volunteering there for twenty years and will tell you more than you knew you wanted to know, in the best way. If you want to go further afield, the Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum in Warner is a bit of a drive but worth it, one of the more thoughtful collections in the state on Abenaki history and the deeper story of who was here stewarding this land and its waters long before any of us.
Check what the libraries are doing. This region has an almost shocking number of libraries for its population, and every single one of them runs a full slate of summer programming. Talks, classes, mah jong tournaments, cribbage nights, the occasional thing you didn’t know you needed until you saw it on the calendar. Scan a few town library websites before you write off a rainy day. Someone, somewhere nearby, is giving a talk or gathering a group on something interesting this afternoon.
Eat your way around the lake. I wrote a whole piece on this earlier this week and a rainy day is a perfect excuse to work through that list. Nothing pairs better with weather like this than someone else doing the cooking. Or scoring one of the Adirondack Chairs at Dox because everyone else is elsewhere and watching the rain fall on the water while the Mount Washington comes in and out and does its timeless thing and you drink giant Aperol Spritz’ all afternoon.
Borrow board games while you’re at the library, and build an afternoon around them. Get the whole crew, whatever combination of family and friends you’ve got under one roof, out onto a covered porch with a stack of games and let the rain be the soundtrack instead of the obstacle.
Or just stop entirely. Patio, blanket, the kind of nap that feels slightly naughty and entirely indulgent on a June afternoon. You will be shocked you need a blanket in June. You will use it anyway.
Or leave town for the day, since the weather forty minutes away might be a completely different story. Head north into Conway, browse the shops, ride the scenic railroad, take the littles to Clark’s Bears or Santa’s Village if that’s where you are in life. Or go south to the Seacoast instead. Walk the beach in the rain, which has its own particular appeal. The Seacoast Science Center has a genuinely great playground next door, plus tide pools that my teenagers and my three-year-old niece are, against all odds, equally captivated by. That’s a rare age range to please all at once, and worth the drive on its own. Wander into Exeter for lunch, or spend the day in Portsmouth touring the colonial houses at Strawberry Banke.
Here’s the thing about rain in a place like this. It’s not a blot on the season. It’s part of it, the part that makes the bright days mean something by contrast, the part that fills the wells back up after a dry year, the part that lets you stay in bed a little longer with the windows open and not feel one bit guilty about it.
We need the rain this year more than usual. But even on an ordinary year, this lady still loves it.
🧭 Jenn
Keys to the Lakes
What do you love to do on a rainy day?
