New Hampshire Vacation May 08

We drove up Tuesday, May 27 to Twin Mountain, NH. What should have been about a 3+ hour drive ended up taking us close to 5 hours. That included 1 bathroom/lunch stop at McDs, 1 stop along side the highway for a certain 5 year old to use the bushes, 1 stop at the rest area/NH visitors center, and 1 stop to see a moose in the ditch on the other side of the road but sadly we barely saw his shape before he "mosied" on into the woods.

Joel and I have always preferred to take our vacations in late May before the heat and swarms of school-aged children increase in number. One of the drawbacks of traveling before June in New England is that you are off-season so not all restaurants and attractions are open. Also, it can still be cold at times. We don't mind either of those. Off-season to me just means a cheaper price and less skin exposed for a sunburn!

We enjoyed amazing weather all week. Tuesday we drove up in the rain but Wednesday, Thursday and Friday the sun shone bright and the temperature reached lower 70s. Fantastic for hiking and playing outside!

Here is a picture of our little cabin. We found Boulder Motor Court on-line and fell in love with our cozy cottage. Two bedrooms, full bath, full kitchen/living room and a fireplace. All for $80 a night!!! The cottage fascinated the boys. They've been trying to build their own ever since we returned home. Wednesday we hit the road for some sightseeing. I won't say we hit the road early. That's not us! We attempted to be out of the cottage by 11 am each morning. After packing our peanut butter and honey sandwiches (if you don't overdue the honey this is much less mess than jelly!), chips, bottled water and apples we climbed in our van and headed back south a little ways.
Lost River Gorge is not for the faint of heart. I mean that literally! I don't recall seeing any warning signs but this trail is truly a work out! While it is all board-walked you are either climbing up stairs or down stairs. And some of the board-walk is a narrow squeeze to get through!

First, we climbed down the stairs into the bottom of the gorge.

Once at the bottom there was no where to go but up!

The trees clinging to boulders amazed me!

Ellie enjoyed much of the view from Daddy's back.

The river thunders over and around massive boulders. The noise required shouting to make yourself heard at times. There were several amazing waterfalls but they didn't show up well on this camera.

Overlapping boulders created caves all along the path. Many required getting down on hands and knees to squeeze through. Thankfully the boardwalk by-passes all of them if you don't want to crawl through. We actually skipped about half the caves because they were so tight. Signs at the openings of each one describe what you will have to do to get through.

We took our time and lots of rest stops along our climb out of the Gorge. This pregnant momma really got a work out for the day!!! But we loved it. I enjoyed seeing different types of plant life (lots of ferns and moss) and the boys thrilled at the thought of what kind of animal might be in each cave. = )

We spent less than $40 on admission, enjoyed a beautiful picnic lunch, and "hiked" for roughly 3 hours. In the end Joel and I declared it "A Good Day."