The End of a Long Day - Falling Waters Trail

Before heading down back into the trees, I took one last look at Lafayette Mountain.

So pretty!

The Falling Waters Trail was about 3.3 miles down the mountain back into the parking lot. After about 20 minutes of trying to keep up with Mike and Tom hopping down rocks, we heard the sound of water. For the rest of the trail, we followed the water downhill, traversing it a couple of times and saw a lot of really cool waterfalls. I have no idea what any of them were called so just enjoy the pictures that follow without any annoying dialogue from myself.






So, after about 9 miles later (from the start of the day), we arrived back to our cars around 6:15. It was a very long, but extremely enjoyable day of hiking. I honestly enjoyed almost every minute of the exercise (except for the previously mentioned rock hopping part where I had trouble keeping up with the boys that actually have legs of a decent length) and I seriously loved the views so much that I might have to drag Mike and whomever else I can up that trail with me again next year.

I will say, though, that a soak in our hot tub after getting home to the condo never felt so wonderful! After taking a dip there, having a nice long shower and enjoying the beautiful sunset (pictured below), we went to Mexican night at the local tavern.
Now, any of you from Texas that have suffered through a Mexican meal in Boston know that this part of the world is not exactly known for making the best food in this genre. However, after a full day of hiking, I think I would have enjoyed just about anything. So, we stuffed ourselves silly on nachos and burritos and headed home. I think I lasted until about 9:30 that evening and settled in for a LONG night of sleep!


Other than some tight calves, I felt really good the next day....still pretty worn out, but good. It's amazing what a toll that long of a day of hiking can take on your body. We played a little tennis to keep our legs loose but didn't do much of anything else. Hey, what are vacation's for if not lazing around?!?

Summer Vacation Part Tres - Lafayette and the Ridge Trail

For many, many months, my father in law, Tom, and I have been discussing taking a LONG hike up Lafayette mountain.  He's done the hike several times and wanted to give it another go.  The trail is popular, so a weekday trip was a must to avoid some of the crowds.  Since we were up there all week, we were hoping for a nice day to make the trek.  Honestly, the weather didn't look super promising for any day that week, but we decided to take a gamble and go on the day that had the most promise.  This landed smack dab in the middle of our vacation week.

 Lafayette Mountain makes up part of Franconia Notch, which is one of the most beautiful places in NH.  I seriously am not allowed to drive when we go through that area because I just can't stop looking at the views around me and pay absolutely no attention to the road.  One of the most noticeable parts of the notch is the huge rock face, shown below.  On the right most side of the rock in this photo is where the historical Man In The Mountain, the symbol of NH, used to be located.

Tom was driving up from the Boston area so we decided to meet up in the trail's parking area at 9:30am.  After "gearing up" for a few minutes, we started out for a LONG day of hiking!  The loop we were taking started with the Old Bridal Path Trail.  

When hiking up a mountain, you of course start uphill pretty immediately.  It was a gradual climb at first and then we started getting to some ledge parts that were a little steeper but still very manageable.  I really didn't pay much attention to time that day so I have no clue how long after starting it was that we got to the first outlook.  It was incredible!  We stopped for a snack on the ledge that overlooked Lafayette and the ridge trail that we would traverse after making it to the peak.

Mike and I in front of the "Ridge Trail" (the shiny parts are wet granite)

The rock ledge (as in the first picture posted) from our first outlook

The peak of Lafayette is at the left of this photo

After a snack and a little rest, we started back up the trail.  The Old Bridal Path ends up at the AMC's Greenleaf Hut.  We decided to break there for lunch since we would need the energy for the next bit of the trail, The Greenleaf Trail, which leads to the summit of Mt. Lafayette. It was such a gorgeous picnic spot!  In the picture below, you can see Tom and I munching on some grub.  In the background is the peak of Lafayette.  DO NOT let this view fool you.  That peak looks very close, but trust me when I say IT IS NOT!

The Greenleaf Trail is approximately 1.1 miles of very steep rock stairs.  Those stairs are the start of the alpine zone.  So we said goodbye to any kind of tree cover and said hello to unobstructed views of the white mountains!
It was a tough uphill battle and we stopped several times to catch our breath.  Below's a picture of Mike catching his breath.  I realize that the background looks like gently rolling hills.  Um, those are mountains.  To get some sense of perspective, on the left of this photo is the rock ledge of the notch (pictured twice above in this post) and directly behind his head are the ski trails of Cannon Mountain Ski Resort.  We're up there!
After a lot of huffing and puffing and stopping to enjoy the fantastic views, we finally made it to the top!

Just beautiful!

Tom, myself and Mike at the top of Lafayete

After more resting and snacking and taking in the scenery, we started off on the Ridge Trail.  It was so amazing!  It's just too cool to be walking along the top of some of the tallest mountains and looking down on 360 views of other mountains. 

Cool rock - eagle or turtle..what do you think?

After hitting 3 peaks - Lafayette, Lincoln and Little Haystack, we headed down the Falling Waters trail.  I have so many pictures of waterfalls from that trail, it deserves its own post!

Summer Vacation Part Dos - Glacial Falls and the Kanc

Okay, so after reviewing some more of our pictures, I do remember what we did the first part of the week other than relax.  We spent some time exploring our NH town and doing a driving tour of the Kancamangus highway.

The week before we left, I did a little research on events going on in the area to give us some fun options of things to do on our week off.  While do

ing so, I came across some articles mentioning a "secret" waterfall in Thornton (our town).  Apparently, there was a park in the area at some time called Glacial Park and one of its main attractions is Glacial Falls.  The park went bust and the land around it has since been purchased and the falls are located on private land.  However, apparently there are laws that state that banks of rivers are public property. So, I decided to take Mike on a trip there and check it out.

It ended up that the banks really weren't conducive to walking on them so we kind of trespassed just a little bit to sneak a peak at the falls.  Whoops!  I felt really bad about that and wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, so I whipped out the camera, took a few shots and bolted.  It's a shame the place isn't available for all the public to see...it really is quite an impressive falls.

Glacial Falls

After not getting caught in our illegal activities, we headed towards the town of Lincoln, taking the scenic route.  I'm glad we did because we got to see this nice vista off one of the bridges on the road.  There'd been a lot of rainfall in the area so the water ways were quite impressive.

The Kancamangus Highway starts in Lincoln, NH.  This is about a 15 minute highway drive from our place.  Loon Mountain is off the "Kanc" in Lincoln and one of the mountains where we enjoy skiing in the winter.  However, a lot of folks that have been in New England in the fall know the Kanc because it is THE place to go leaf-peeping.  That's exactly why I have avoided it during that time period...too much traffic!  So, Mike took me on it for this nice summer day to see some of its sights.

It's a very scenic and enjoyable drive in any season.  We stopped to see Rocky Gorge and Falls Pond which are next to each other and right on the highway.

Rocky Gorge

Self Portrait at Falls Pond

It rained on and off all that day but we managed to have a fun time and still enjoy the great outdoors in between the showers.  Plus, the low, wispy clouds gave us some really cool views around the mountains.

Summer Vacation Part Uno

Our vacation started on Saturday the 9th. While we hadn't yet left home, we dedicated the day to fun. We started out the day at the farmers market in Roslindale (the next borough over). While food shopping is not necessarily most people's idea of vacation, getting fresh produce from the market makes me happier than you would believe!

I fondly remember going on trips to the Dallas farmers market with my parents (which I also did last weekend but I'll get to that later). Growing up, I thought all farmers markets were that size but now I realize how incredible ginormous that place is! HUGE sheds where farmers back up on their trucks on both sides and unload their produce. If you line up all the produce in all of the sheds, both sides, end to end, I bet you have about 1/2-3/4 mile of produce shops (no exaggeration). Here's a picture of what the Dallas farmers market looks like that I found online.Up in the north, where apparently there's not tons of growing land nor a long growing season, farmers markets consist of a measly stand or two of produce. No matter, I still love going to them and getting some good, fresh, local produce.

After stocking up on fresh veggies, we took a little bike ride down to the Stony Brook Reservation near our house which we had never checked out. It was a nice, aimless ride. That evening, we had Mike's good friend Anna and her fiance, Patrick over for dinner. We had a great night catching up, sharing photos, playing with all of our critters and laughing a lot.

Anna and Smokey

Sunday morning, we packed up the car, complete with the kitties, and headed up to the most affordable vacation option we had - our place in NH! After arriving and unpacking, we headed into the town of Lincoln for a craft fair. All I left with was a bag of kettle corn, but I certainly consider that worth the trip!

I honestly can't remember specifics of what we did the rest of Sunday, Monday and Tuesday but those days pretty much only involved doing nothing, being woken up in the middle of the night by Luci the cat, reading, playing tennis and watching the Olympics. So, basically, great lazy vacation days!

Vacation All I Ever Wanted....

....Vacation HAD to Get Away! (Who doesn't love the Go-Gos??)

Sorry I've been a little MIA. Things got a little hectic pre-vacation and I wasn't able to let you folks know that I wouldn't be around for a bit. I'm back now and will have lots of pictures to post and stories to tell in the coming days so stay tuned!

Girls Gone (Mildly) Wild

Last weekend I had the pleasure of co-hosting Jenn's bachelorette party at the NH condo.

Friday afternoon, I took off work early and drove up with Brenda and Kari.  We were about 30 minutes in front of Jenn and Nicole (the MOH from Florida) and had just enough time to give the place a quick cleaning and set up a few things we had planned for the weekend.

Once everyone got there, we chatted for a bit and then walked across the road to look at the Pemigewassett River to calm any fears that it wouldn't be a relaxing kayaking ride the next day.  On the way back across the street, we stopped in at our neighbor's place to get some fresh eggs they advertise.  While there, we got to meet Xena their dog and Festus their goat.

I was warned that the eggs were blue, but I definitely didn't believe it until I saw it.  Sure enough, they had a blue tint to them.  The photo didn't get the best light, but I think you can make out the Easter tint to them.  Cool, huh?

We watched the weather channel that night because the forecast hadn't looked too great for the weekend.  According to the reports, we might have time to do a planned kayak trip first thing in the morning.  Of course, we had made no reservations so we would have to wait until the ski shop opened the next day to see if they had any rentals available.

Saturday morning, we got up, had a lovely leisurely breakfast, including our blue fresh eggs and then promptly called the shop at 9 for rentals.  They had no openings.  So, we called another place in the next town over and, as luck would have it, they had room for us.  The only problem?  It was 9:25, none of us were ready, they wanted to drop the boats in the water at 10 and we were a 15 minute drive away.  Yikes!  We all swung into action and, by some miracle, got there at about 10 of 10!  Whew!  Now, time to have fun and relax!

This was a section of the river that I hadn't done before so it was cool to see something new.  It was very peaceful and we didn't see many signs of human life after we got in the water (very different than the other route I've done where it's more of a constant river party).  So, we felt as if we had the whole river to ourselves.  

We did get to see a little wildlife - a few baby ducks and some Osprey.  We got to view the ginormous Osprey nest.  After we passed it, we saw an Osprey flying towards the nest with something in it's talons...as it flew directly above us, we realized it was a rat!  Ewww!  Gross but pretty cool to see!

Here are some pics of the kayaking:

My attempt to get our kayak cluster with a self portrait.

I got four (well 2 and 2 halves) of the five of us - not bad!

(L to R) Brenda, Jen, Kari, Me

Yet another self portrait - Me and Nicole.

After a great trip, we headed back to the condo for a little lunch.  Brenda, Jenn and I still had a little energy to burn off and it looked like the rain was going to hold off for a bit so the three of us headed to my favorite local NH hike - the Welch Dickey peaks.  We just wanted a quick hike so we headed up to the first outlook on the Welch peak for a nice view.

Brenda, Jenn and I on the granite outcropping on Welch Mountain

At the top there were wild blueberries!

Yes, this is what you think it is - poo!

I'm 95% sure it's bear scat, and you can see

that the bear has also been enjoying the blueberries!

After the hike, we got back and all the gals started getting pretty to go out to dinner.  I think the rain held off until about then.  Then, we all enjoyed a great dinner at the Country Cow.  What's a party without ice cream, right?!?!  So, we had to have some ice cream sundae's when we got back to the condo.  Yummy!

Nicole and Jenn smiling with their ice cream

What's a bachelorette party without a lingerie party?  So, of course we got Jenn some snexy stuff, though you folks don't need to see that!  Brenda had some very amusing gifts to give Jenn, and I'll let you see just one of the funnies:

DOH!!!

We also enjoyed chick flicks, pedicures and each others' company!  A great night!

All in all it was truly a perfect weekend.  Everything worked in our favor and a fabulous time was had by all.  It was the winning combination of girls, relaxing and fun!

The 1000 Challenge

I am definitely the kind of person that always needs a goal to push myself physically. Welcome to my newest regular goal - the 1000 challenge! The concept is easy - do 1000 push ups and\or 1000 sit ups in a month. I've always hated push ups yet have seen the strength you build with them (when I'm forced to do them in classes at the gym) and I'd really love to have a 6-pack (though I'll settle for 4) so I figured this would be a great fitness challenge to take on.

The idea of the challenge came from Tamara and Ross when they came up to visit us in NH for the July 4th weekend. So, I got my start 5 days late but still managed to get them all in. Actually, I got to 1005 push ups and 1035 sit ups, but who's counting? Oh, that's right, I am! It wasn't all that difficult to be honest. I'd do 10 push ups at a time in varying ways (regular, incline, decline, triceps) whenever I could during my day (normally while watching tv).

Today, I will start again and be able to pace my push ups so that I have a few days off throughout the month to let my chest muscles rest. For sit-ups, 1000 was actually WAY too easy of a goal, so I think I'll go for 2000 this month.

Who wants to join me in the challenge?

(P.S. Thanks Tamara and Ross for the new obsession.)