Mittenstock

What started as something of a joke has turned into a great name for a great place. Mittenstock is a mashup of nicknames we were giving property that we looked at in the spring of 2013 – but let me go back farther than that.

I moved to the area the day after I graduated from High School, and a few years later I would meet my bride here in 1984. We were both motivated and professionally focused and came to the realization that there was simply not enough work in information systems in the valley to base a career on. With that we moved to the area of Portland Maine. We got busy with work, life, building a house and more – and trips to our beloved White Mountains became fewer and fewer. We got over now and again, but at times years would pass without a visit.

Sometime around spring of 2009 we were starting to visit more – we rode the Kanc on our bikes again, and would do that for both of our ’50 on 50′ birthday rides. After interest in hiking re-developed in 2011 and 2012 we found ourselves coming over nearly every weekend we could. That meant 125 or more miles in the car each day – and importantly, over three hours that could be spent in adventure were lost to driving. With that notion firmly in mind, Sally started to say  ‘wouldn’t it be nice to have a small place, so we could bring the dogs over and spend the night’ while I agreed, I never really thought much would come of it.  The thought of a hike or climb then dinner and NOT having to drive back in the dark was appealing.

Come April 2013, the real-estate search was in full swing and the queen of Google was on the case. We came over more and more for showings and investigations. We would give a candidate a nick name as all the street names and location names started to sound alike. Names like ‘swampville’ and ‘mittendorf’ would be thrown about in conversation of comparative analysis of property and locations.

We landed on a property on a street named Bristenstock – that morphed into Mittenstock

 

You can only imagine how thrilled I was, being the geek I am, that the domain was available. Hard to believe it, but yes.

So was ‘Mitten’ for a license plate. A continuation of a fortuitous spring of 2013.