Today was set aside to visit Mt. Washington. I remembered it being pretty cool, but was pleasantly surprised that I had forgotten a lot about it. Plus, I had an interesting new "travel perspective" that I didn't have when I was 16 or 17 years old.
We drove to the entrance of Mt. Washington separately, but since Mr. Sitt isn't a fan of heights (or of driving along the edge of mountain top drop-offs), he heeded the warning sign and we took our truck to the top.
We took our time in the visitor center looking at the videos and multitude of cool exhibits. Bill and I popped into the Top House...
...and met back up with the Sitts to take a stroll on Crawford Path. It's interesting they use this word "path". To me, the word "path" when describing a trail, means a leisurely, effortless, tranquil, and mindless walk. While not taxing, it did require a fair amount of concentration to avoid a twisted knee or a broken ankle, and of course, the head trauma that would likely accompany either of these two injuries. Additionally, most walking paths don't have a history of many people DYING on them. This particular path does. Creepy. It's still cool looking none the same.
After we hiked back up to the visitor center, it was time for lunch so we decided to grab a bite to eat at the café before we decided on a hike. We grabbed a couple slices of pizza (which were surprisingly tasty), and sat in the breezeway watching people walk by. It was interesting to people watch. There were people who had driven up, people who had ridden the train up, and then there were the people who had hiked up. Those were the folks drooling over our pizza as they walked by. Ah, yes, I remember something akin to that after hiking out of the Grand Canyon. You’d be surprised how delicious a hot dog can be after a day-long hike carrying a full pack up a 6,000 foot ascent. A scoop of cookie dough ice cream? Well, that’s like a little taste of heaven.
After lunch, none of us were super motivated or inclined to do a serious hike (or really any at all) so we climbed back in the truck and made our way down the auto road. Of course, curiosity overcame lack of motivation when we saw a parking lot at a seemingly cool alpine level trailhead. Bill and Shele decided to stay put in the truck and Bill and I made our way to the Alpine Garden Trail.
There were cool beehive shaped cairns (where I insisted on a photo - I AM on this vacation too regardless of an overwhelming lack of photographic evidence!). "Normal sized" cairns were used frequently to mark the trail through the boulder and rock field.
In addition to watching out for loose rocks, we had to make sure not to step on any of the little alpine plants. I'm so fascinated by these things. Year after year, they not only manage to live through some of the harshest conditions on earth, they actually thrive and propagate. God's creations are so amazing and I love having the opportunity to see this stuff first hand.
We made our way back to the truck....where I'm pretty sure Bill and Shele were making out.... hahahaha!
Zoomed in photo (actually taken several hundred feet away) shows Shele snuggling with her man... :)
We drove down the auto road and listened to the audio CD which provided all sorts of interesting tidbits. It was still early afternoon when we dropped the Sitts off at their truck. They decided to head back to the campground while Bill and I went across the street to the adventure center.
We pulled in and parked next to two super hot Italians. One was a Ducati Monster 1200 and the other was an exotic MV Agusta Brutalle 800 Dragster RR. ha ha ha! After a few minutes of gawking at them, we eventually ended up chatting with their owners. They were a married couple from New Brunswick, eh. How handy, that's where we're planning on going. We discussed the option of riding over to Nova Scotia while we were there, and after hearing about some of our riding in Colorado and down the Blue Ridge Parkway, they said not to bother. :) They prepared to leave, we offered up the standard "ride safe" goodbyes, and we watched them ride away. <sigh>
We walked over to the entrance and were intrigued by the cool patriotic art display.
We went into the gift shop and bought some souvenirs and made our way downstairs to the outdoor center. It was pretty small and didn't have a large selection (REI has spoiled us over the years) so we headed back upstairs. We met Harvey and Jan, an older retired couple from the area who still loved the outdoors and were just taking advantage of the beautiful weather and spending another day visiting Mt. Washington. Harvey told us how he and his pastor would take teen groups on hikes from the bottom of Mt. Washington to the peak. He was retired Navy and had lots of interesting tales. We swapped travel stories and hiking adventures and really enjoyed the conversation. We absolutely love chatting with older people. They have so much more to offer than most people our age or younger. If presented with the choice to hang out with people my own age or a retired couple with cool travel stories, I'd pick the older folks every time. Not only do they have better stories and are more interesting, they're generally more polite and actually care about other people and the important things in life. Conversations with them are engaging, real, and 100% focused. They make actual eye contact when they talk to you and they don't pick up their phone in the middle of a conversation to check Facebook. It's so refreshing. Old people are great!
As we were leaving, Harvey gave Bill his business card. Bill flipped it over and saw the Romans Road on the back. We chatted a few more minutes and I told them I would email him our blog (Hi, Harvey & Jan!!) and mentioned that if we don't see them again here, we'll see them eventually. :D
On our way back to Berlin, we decided to see if the "pick your own" blueberry farm was open. Bill had found a business card for "Blueberry Heaven" which just happened to be about 5 miles north of the campground. I called to make sure they were open and then we made our way to the farm.
The farm was beautiful and the woman we spoke to said the blueberries were so abundant this year, you could pick them like grapes. She was right. I have never seen blueberry bushes as full as these. The berries were so large that they were having a contest for the kids. If they could find a blueberry as big as a quarter, they got a free quart of berries. Little kids would run up to the hut to place their berry on top of the quarter and would excitedly look up to see if their berry made the cut. One little girl had scored herself a free quart just before we arrived.
Nice view, eh?
I really was in blueberry heaven because these berries were organic and beautiful. They were so careful not to contaminate the bushes with any kind of chemical that they required people to spray themselves with mosquito repellent (if they absolutely must) before they got anywhere near the field.
When we walked in, I was blown away by the sheer quantity and size of the these monsters. There were a few varieties all mingled together, but all of the bushes were heavy with the weight of the berries.
It took us about 20 minutes to pick 6 quarts of berries. Oh, and the best part - they were $4 a quart. Can you believe that?! Organic fresh picked blueberries for $4 a quart?!? I told the manager and a few customers that we have to pay about 6 bucks for a PINT of organic blueberries at home - and that's when they're on sale - which is exactly why we don't get to eat them very often. They were completely shocked by this. Needless to say, I happily forked over the 24 bucks for our berries.
On our way back to the state park, we finally spotted a bull moose alongside the road. :)
Once we returned to the campground with our berry bounty, we quickly decided we would have blueberry pancakes for breakfast. NOM! We then realized we didn't have any syrup and while I usually make pancakes from scratch, I wasn't inclined to dirty up a bunch of stuff in the camper (JMSP doesn't have water or electric at the sites so we have to be careful to conserve batteries and water), so decided to get some nasty add-water-pour-and-shake batter from the store. Bill and I took the bikes into town and found what we needed at the Berlin Marketplace. On our way back, we detoured at the lake to watch the sun set before going back to the campground.
We had hotdogs for dinner and then chilled at the Sitt's campfire for a while. It grew dark but the moon was full and shining so intensely it lit up the whole campground. We heard a loon calling so Bill and I decided to take a walk to the lake around 9:30. We heard quite a bit of racket in the woods, and I reminded Bill that we were in bear and moose country. From that point forward we paid a bit more attention to our surroundings and, rather than relying on the moonlight to light our way, we pulled out the headlamps and scanned the woods. Fortunately (and much to my dismay), no bear or moose ever appeared. We walked back to our campsite around 10:30 and were greeted with the sounds of rowdy neighbors talking loudly and playing music at decibel levels that far exceeded those appropriate during "quiet time" hours. We grumbled a bit about the stupidity of the "no generators after 8pm" rule at an ATV campground (where people were riding well after dark) while excessive and obnoxious noise went completely unchecked. We closed our windows and went to bed around 11pm with the hope that the neighbors would soon tire and either pass out or head to bed. I didn't much care which one occurred as long as they..."SHHUUUUT...UUPPP!!!!" (inside joke). :D We didn't set the alarm and planned for a blueberry breakfast followed by a 9am departure. Our next stop - Acadia National Park.
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