New Hampshire!?!

I guess its high time for a more light-hearted post. I apologize for the seriousness lately. We have had a hard time the last few months, wrestling with whether or not to stay in Boston, whether or not to stay with our jobs, which both of us are beginning to hate, what IS the next step for us, etc. But there I go again, waxing serious...

So. Two weeks ago, when Scott went hiking over the Fourth, he found a really great river, a gorgeous waterfall you can play in and a quiet place to camp, that would be easy enough for the dogs to hike and it would give us the seclusion we always long for on a trip like that. Usually, we have to get dogsitters for our hikes or we end up at a campground that requires doggie certificates of health and has loud, drunken neighbors twenty yards away.

We drove into New Hampshire, into the Pemigewasset Wilderness. Our trail was an abandoned railroad, so it was very straight and flat. And long. We hiked for about three and half miles along the tracks and finally came to Franconia Falls. It was a natural water park!

That slide was so smooth and the water so deep to land in, it seemed man-made! Dolly loved to run alongside as far as possible, barking at whoever was sliding and snapping at the water like she wanted a turn.

On the last leg of the trip, we actually hiked down through the river, with slippery round rocks and a healthy current past our knees (we had to carry the dogs a few times), and we eventually found a peaceful campsite at the junction of two bubbling rivers. We spoiled ourselves on steak tips for dinner and and for breakfast: bacon, scrambled eggs and pancakes!

Round trip was about 14 miles with a lot of straight, endless railroad tracks, but it was so worth it. If you know our dogs, you can see that they were in heaven!