Mini-Break Holiday Weekend

We spent last weekend in the beautiful White Mountains of New Hampshire. We already had plans to meet up with some friends on Sunday so we took the opportunity to spend an extra day up there and do some hiking.

Doug has “Lazy Fridays” between Memorial Day and Labor Day (his office closes at 1:00), so we were able to hit the road around 2:00. We were expecting heavy traffic on the way up since about half of the Boston metropolitan area usually goes to New Hampshire on Fridays. The other half goes to Cape Cod. But traffic wasn’t horrible yet and we arrived at our rental cabin in Twin Mountain by 5:30 or so. This was after several pit stops at grocery stores so Doug could do some research for work. I won’t bore you with the details.

We found our rental cabin on the internet and it was almost exactly what we had expected. Aside from the standard-issue musty smell, we had no real complaints. Each cabin comes equipped with a charcoal grill so we fired up the coals with our new chimney starter. Doug had noticed the Test Kitchen always uses these handy little things when cooking on the charcoal grill, so we decided to give it a try. It worked great heating up the coals very quickly without lighter fluid. Now we’ll just need to get a charcoal grill for home.

While Doug was keeping his eye on the grill, the couple staying in the cabin across the street arrived. They had Massachusetts plates also. The gentleman noticed Doug’s Virginia Tech sticker on the car and came over to introduce himself as a fellow Hokie, class of 1972. Those Hokies are everywhere!

The cabin did come equipped with a television, so after enjoying our hot dogs we watched the Sox game.

At 7:00 on Saturday morning we were rudely awakened by a really loud noise. It sounded like something really big either hit the side of the cabin or landed on the roof. Doug went outside to investigate but found nothing. Bizarre. We wanted to hit the trail early so we stuffed in some breakfast and hit the road. The trailhead was only a 10 minute drive away.


Our destination for the day was Thoreau Falls, five miles away over relatively flat terrain. It’s a nice varied trail, starts out through a nice fragrant pine forest for a few miles. The next section meanders through some beaver ponds. Finally, you reach some great views along an exposed ridgeline before reaching the falls. We saw plenty of moose droppings along this section of trail. (Yes, I can identify certain animal droppings. Not sure if this is something to be proud or embarrassed about.) No moose sightings though. The only creature we saw all day was a garter snake.

The Falls were pretty great. The best part was soaking our feet in the very cold water; it felt great. We enjoyed our lunch and had the falls to ourselves for about half an hour before some more hikers arrived.

The hike back to the car was uneventful. My hiking limit always seems to be about 8 miles so the last 2 miles were a bit tough. At least it was flat. There were a lot of people pouring in as we were heading out. Getting up early always pays off when it comes to hiking. One family we passed had a cute yellow lab with them and we heard the son say to her, “Come on, Sage!” I mentioned Sage is my name too and we all had a good laugh. As we parted ways the son said, “Well, that was totally random!”

We arrived back at the car by 1:00 and returned to the cabin to catch up on our reading and play some cards. For dinner we had burgers on the grill and watched the Sox game again.

Sunday morning we were up early again and I sent Doug out to fetch some coffee and pastries. I honestly didn’t think he’d find anything as we were sort of in the middle of nowhere but he returned just a few minute later with the good stuff from a shop down the road.

Around 9:00 we packed up the car and hit the road for the 30 minute drive to my friend Wendy’s parent’s house in Randolph. I met Wendy in pre-school and we’ve been close ever since. She now lives in Colorado with her husband and two children and occasionally travels back to New Hampshire to visit her parents. This was actually the first time in five years we’ve seen each other and it was the first time I’ve met her kids. We had a great visit and enjoyed a barbecue before hitting the road for the 3 1/2 hour drive back to Wayland.