Sunday, October 19, 2008

Hiking for Foliage

We went hunting for foliage the first weekend in October up in Northern NH. My goal was to be more organized in my hunt this year, so I researched some good back roads and had a good idea of what I wanted to see:
1.Covered Bridge-don't laugh! I am allowed to do tourist-y things!
2.Mountain views-I wanted to see mountain ranges from the tops of mountains...ambitious, I know.
3.Waterfall-I just like them.

Anyhow, so I found the perfect spots to find all of these things and the weather/foliage reports told us that the area was peaking, so we headed out. Turns out that I would say that the area was just shy of peak, but beautiful nonetheless.

So, I'll take you on tour with us...
Covered Bridge? Check. This one is like 300'+ long. We drove across it. So, after this, we continued onto this trail that I had researched and it was quote: "an easy 1.2 hike with some slight inclines." Ha! Well, 1.2 was to the first of the ledges. Round trip ended up being around 3 miles, and the hike was not easy...the stroll required using all four limbs, at times, and frequent maneuvers around boulders with constant attention to tree root obstacles. Regardless, we pressed on and eventually made it up to the ledges.
Now again, you can enlarge the pictures for some detail, but pictures don't do justice to the beauty. Here are some more pictures of the views:
I believe that is the Swift River.
Being silly.
Being silly again.
I like this picture. That whole side of the mountain was red.
And finally, my favorite....
These, of course, were all from different ledges...different views.
Hey little guy. Or girl.

Well, after we made it back down to the car, we were too hungry to address goal three of a waterfall. So, this had to suffice:Oh, Jeremy humor coming out. Jeremy and I were actually talking about how my sense of humor has changed since marriage. Guess I've been Jeremy-fied. But really, we were too tired for the "short" hike to the waterfall that I had planned for us to see. And, who knows...the waterfall that was 1/3 mile hike off the road may have been 3 more miles off road. These were the only other waterfall type sights we saw.And then, hungry and thristy, we headed to a heavenly site:
We've gone from eating at the one in Waco once or twice a month to not have had this since before our move...almost a year and a half. Nearest one is this one in NH. After eating all the Southern goodness we could hold, we rolled into the car and home.

3 comments:

Brett, Julz, and Emma said...

WOW!! GORGEOUS pictures! Those are amazing! I especially liked the covered bridge pic Chels....I don't think that's silly or "touristy" at all. Those need to be blown up and framed! (especially the one of you chompin' on the mushrooms or whatever those were growing out of the tree!!) :O) hehe!

So, am I ever gonna get to see you guys again!! It's been forever!! Wish we could just hop on a plane and head your way!! We miss y'all!

TJ said...

Great Post! I love New England in the fall. Don't worry, we've lived here for a long time and we still do touristy things.

Kristin said...

truly beautiful!! i can almost feel that crisp fall air and smell the sweet apples in the breeze...awww, i miss it.