A Relaxing Weekend in New Hampshire

One of the Greeley Ponds

Last weekend Laurie and I went to New Hampshire. As I've said before, when I hike alone I do big  mountains. When I go with Laurie, we usually do shorter hikes to nice views and/waterfalls and mountain ponds. Laurie got out of work about 4 pm on Thursday. We knew we would be stuck in traffic around rush hour. We didn't care, we just wanted to get out of town. So after our initial traffic jam, we had two days in the mountains.

Our plan was to hike a 4000 foot mountain on Friday morning. It would be one of the easier ones I have left. It is a north country mountain named Waumbeck.  Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans. When we woke up, it was drizzling and the cloud ceiling was about 3500 feet. I'm not hiking a big mountain without getting the satisfaction of seeing the view.

The weather was going to clear around noon. I decided to do what I normally do on wet days, I hiked to a mountain pond. We went out to Greeley Ponds off the Kancamangus. It is an easy hike to two pretty mountain ponds. The trail goes from the Kanc past the ponds all the way to Waterville Valley. It is much easier to reach the ponds from the Kanc side than coming from the other way.

Mt. Pemi Trail going under I-93

The weather was clearing as we walked. By the time we got to the first pond, there was some blue in the sky. The sun started to evaporate the water on the ground and leaves. Even though the temperature was about 80, because of the sauna like moisture, it felt much hotter. Not to worry, there is a little beach at the pond where Laurie put her feet in the water and I looked at small fish.

We went to the second pond and lallygagged there for a while. When we got done hiking we went back to Lincoln and got pizza for lunch.

After lunch it was still only about 3 pm. On the spur of the moment, we decided to hike Mt. Pemigewasset. This is the mountain that the famous Indian Head Profile is on. As a matter of fact, the hike goes up to the top of the head. The mountian is just north of Whale's Tale waterpark.  We hiked in from the north where the trailhead starts at the Flume Gorge Visitor Center.

The trail starts easy enough. It goes under I-93 and Route 3 by tunnel. After the initial warm up, the hike climbs gently up the mountain. It climbs roughly a thousand feet in 1.6 miles. The view at the top was fantastic. You can see most of Franconia Ridge ( part is obscured by trees). The main views are south and west. You can see for many miles to the south looking into the town of Lincoln and way beyond. We stayed up top as long as we dared and still make it down before dark.

When we got down, it was 7:30. Laurie took a quick dip in Echo Lake. I roamed the shoreline and

Lauri getting some sun on Mt. Pemi
View is to the south

found a Lesser Yellowlegs (shorebird). After her swim we went back to camp.

The next day Laurie had some major blisters on her heel. Any real hiking was a just a dream. We went to a place we wanted to check out in the Newfound Lake region called Sculptured Rocks Natural Area.  The area is known as Grand Canyon of New Hampshire. First off... if anyone calls ANYTHING the Grand Canyon of (fill in the blank) they have never been to the Grand Canyon! No little gorge in New Hampshire can compare to a 270 mile long mile deep whole in the earth.

However the little gorge was cool. The water drilled a small little canyon about thirty feet deep and five hundred feet long. The rocks have been  polished by the rushing water. There are neat natural potholes  and weird rock formations.  We drove there really looking forward to see this natural area in an area of New Hampshire I had never been too. It was nice, and I'm glad I went, however it was not worth going so far out of the way to see.

Lesser Yellowlegs

After we left "the Grand Canyon" we found a Farmer's Market on our way to the highway. We bought some blueberries and an amazing homemade blueberry pie.

 Photos below are of the Sculptured Rocks Natural Area

2nd Story Theater, Warren, RI- The Sunshine Boys

Thursday night I pulled myself away from the Olympics. I had bought tickets to go see a play with my brother at a small theater in Warren, RI. The theater is called 2nd Story Theater. My boss told me about it a few months ago and said it was really cool.
   
I went online and saw the plays for the summer. In June the play "Tuesday's with Morrie" was playing. I had read the book and wanted to see it. However, the book was so sad, I decided to pass. So I asked my brother what play he most wanted to see was. He chose the "Sunshine Boys". The tickets were a birthday present and a chance for two busy brothers to hang out.

The play is about a retired comic duo that hadn't spoken in eleven years. They fought a lot during their forty three years together. As expected, fate brings them back together for one more show.  From the first line to the last, the show was funny. We, along with the audience, laughed out loud multiple times.

The playhouse itself is really cool. It is in downtown Warren just off of Route 114. The play that we saw was upstairs. We counted the seats, and as best as we could see, there are roughly only 160. The play was "in the round". The play is in the center of the room. All the seats are along the walls. There are no bad seats. There are only about five or six rows so no matter where you sit, you can see the eyes of the actors.

I took this picture before the play started. The stage is in the middle
of the room. You can see how small it is. There are only a few rows

Tickets for the plays are $30. Considering how expensive it it to go to PPAC and Trinity Rep are, I think this a very fair price.

  The play lasted an hour and forty five minutes including the short intermission. There is a bar downstairs if you want to get a drink (you can bring it up to your seat). There are multiple places to eat within a couple of blocks. Parking is simple, as there is a municipal lot directly across the street. There is also onstreet parking and other lots (you can see the parking areas at the website)

All in all, we had a great time. I will absolutely go back again. Plays go on year round. I am always looking for things to do during the winter to break up the monotony.

Olympics and Red (kayak), White (rumped sandpiper) and Blue(fish) Catching up on August

My biggest blue. Caught about ten days ago before the Olympics  started

I haven't wrote much the last couple of weeks. The main reason for that is the Olympics. For the most part I have spent every night the last week watching them. I really don't watch much television. Sometimes, I'll go weeks at a time without even turning it on. However, since the Summer Olympics are only on every four years, I watch as much as I can

 My friend Laurie comes over almost every night to watch them. She is huge into the Olympics. As I have said before, her favorite sports are gymnastics and figure skating. It blows me away how much she knows about gymnastics.  We all know sports junkies that know all the stats from Fantasy Baseball and football. Laurie is like that with gymno.  She knows everyone's routine, not just the Americans, but everyone! We could be watching Great Britain's third best girl on balance beam, and Laurie can tell if she took a twist or flip out of her routine. It is amazing to see.

As for the other things mentioned in this post's title: the colors are patriotic symbolizing myself and Laurie rooting for team USA. However when I have gotten out it has been to go birding from my (red) kayak at Charlestown Breachway. I went today. I ran across two other birders that I have seen many times this year. They spotted two new birds for me this year ( Pectoral Sandpiper and Lesser Yellowlegs). We thought we had a white-rumped sandpiper, but it turned out to be a big Least Sandpiper.

Three Short-Billed Dowitchers

Before I started on the Olympic binge I was still enjoying the incredible summer fishing that
Narragansett Bay has blessed me with this year. Although I was still catching the occasional small striper, for the most part I had been getting bluefish every night. I was probably averaging 6-8 fish with tons more hits. Some nights the hot lure was shad bodies. As you can imagine the blues were chewing them to pieces. On nights that the fish were less fussy, we were getting them on poppers and Jumpin Minnows. The blues ranged ion size from 2 pounds up to big ten pounders. You just never knew what you would hook.  It was a blast.

It was hard to take a couple weeks off from the great fishing. I've heard the fishing has slowed down a lot. I'm not happy to hear that. I'd rather be missing out with something to look forward to in a week. Whatever happens, it has been a fun summer so far.

Go USA!

Remember your memory card! Charlestown Breachway Mudflats Birding

The worst named bird ever, Short Billed Dowitcher

The last two days I went to one of my favorite summertime places, the mudflats at Charlestown
Breachway. The mudflats are a great place to see migrating shorebirds. Besides the birding, the mudflats and Ninigret Pond is just a fun place to be. There are always kayakers exploring the pond during the summer. People will go clamming for both soft shelled clams and quahogs.

Of course, my main focus was birding. Low tide, the best tide, was in the afternoon both days so I didn't leave my house until 1 pm. I didn't see many unusual shorebirds. The biggest surprise was how many Piping Plover I saw. There were at least twenty both days.

On the other hand, I did have a big disappointment. On Thursday I started taking pictures of birds that were very close to me. I looked down to see what one of the photos looked like. My camera told me "Memory Card Not Inserted! I left it in my computer from the last time I downloaded pictures. I was so pissed at myself. I had no excuse for doing this, just a careless oversight.

Laughing Gull

Of course, I saw one bird that I didn't know what it was. It was slightly bigger than the other peeps feeding. It had red on its neck. If I could have gotten a picture I could have put it online for ID help. I went back Friday hoping it was still there but no such luck.

So I relearned a valuable lesson  to do a mental checklist before going on a daytrip. Remembering the camera isn't enough. Checking for memory card and making sure the battery is charged is just as important.

Semipalmated Sandpiper

Piping Plover

Least Sandpiper

Willet

Just a cool place