#20 Boston - New Hampshire by the Sea - October 20, 2005

It has stopped, the rain has finally stopped!! It might come back, but as of now we can dry out a bit here.

Last weekend was absolutely horrendous - ignoring the weather reports and focusing our stupid brains on the fact that they (the weather forecasters) might be wrong (duh!!), we headed to a very saturated New Hampshire, which by my last impression was on its way to slide toward Massachusetts and probably end up in the parking lot in front of my house, or maybe even become beach front property. Waterville Beach, how does that sound?

How far did our stupidity go? Well, let me tell you, the sky is the limit! (Actually it was....) Unimpressed by the torrential rains, I wanted to attempt to do another one of the 48 4,000 footers in New Hampshire, and talked poor Rick and Barbara into going up Mount Garfield. At 4500 feet it is not a small undertaking, even though it is known to be the most mellow of the 4000 footers, at least in its approach. The hike to the top, which on a normal day, provides spectacular views (http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/whites/garfield.html), is about 5 miles, and leads along pleasant hiking trails with a couple of brook crossings. Hah! There was nothing pleasant about it! Maybe the first two miles or so we were pretty good sports about it, but then all bets were off. The rain showed no sign of letting up, rather it increased its intensity with every new level of frustration we experienced, as the moisture content in our clothes reached new peak levels. We eventually reached the final fork in the road, where 0.2 miles led to the summit and the same distance in the other direction supposedly led to a shelter. Grumpy, wet, hungry, we climbed the final insanely steep part of the hike up to the top where the weather proved even more repulsive, and you could not see the hand in front of your face. I am sure at this point Rick and Barbara where ready to push me off the cliff, as I had insisted to come up here first instead of heading for the shelter. Finding the shelter then proved to be the next adventure - I don't know who makes the friggin' signs up there, but 0.2 miles, puhleeezze!! You must be kidding me!! By the time we got to the darn lean-to, we had about 5 minutes time to eat, warm ourselves up by slipping into our soaked sweaters, and then hoof it back down the mountain before darkness caught up with us.
Meanwhile, 5 hours into the Hike From Hell, the situation had gotten worse, and we were pretty much sliding down the hill, walking through lakes, and on the last section faced two major river crossings - the brooks we had crossed a few hours earlier had turned into raging rivers, and it took us quite a while to figure out how and where to get to the other side.. Eventually I just walked through the damn river, knee-deep in water, and for the rest of the early evening made friends with the lake system that had formed in my previously waterproof boots. Phoebe, our bona fide mountain dog Labrador retriever, was a good sport most of the time, but I think her opinion of the humans she hangs out with definitely took a turn toward the unfavorable.

It took some serious effort that night to warm up - hot cocoa, fireplace, heater, beer - you name it! No one was allowed to mention any word that was even remotely related to water.

Now here is where it gets even more moronic - guess who went out hiking the next morning?? Yep, you guessed right. This time up Fletcher's Cascade, a 3-mile hike that starts in Waterville Valley and leads up to a spectacular set of waterfalls (See picture up top), but even the most spectacular sight could no longer compete with my grumpiness and the increasing amount of cuss words that I kept uttering ever so quietly. Next time it rains like this, I will opt for some indoor hiking around my living room with a glass of Jamesons in my hand!

Back in the hub, it was time to switch gears and head for the Wang Theatre (http://www.wangcenter.org/) - Boston's premier playhouse, designed by Clarence Blackall, a leading American theater architect in the late 1700s. Originally known as the Metropolitan Theatre ("The Met"), it is simply stunning with its crystal chandeliers, marble doorways and towering columns. The performance of the Boston Ballet that night (http://www.bostonballet.org/) featured a very unusual production of "Cinderella", with the principal roles danced to perfection by Larissa Ponomarenko and Roman Rykine. Cinderella's step mom was a drunk, and all she did was knock down one drink after the other, one of the step sisters was blind as a bat and had glasses the size of dinner plates, and then there were entire dance sequences featuring guys with pumpkin heads (??). In a very ironic twist of fate, the guy sitting in front of Ellen seemed to be related to the pumpkin guys, at least when it came to the size of his noggin' and needless to say, he did make a better door than a window....

What else? Work, Work, Work, Name Change, Name Change and Name Change, Running, Running and Running.
Oh ya, Movies, movies and movies..... And yes, it stopped raining, and we had a couple of decent autumn days here in New England. The first snow has arrived in New Hampshire - Mt. Washington has received is first dusting and some ice (http://www.mountwashington.org/) - it is 19 degrees Fahrenheit (7.2 Celsius) up there and the winds at night are riling themselves up to a decent 100 mph (160 kmh).

Tomorrow is Friday, the weekend is coming mercifully quickly and there is some hiking (caveat: No Rain!) and a road race ahead for this weekend. Tomorrow night I will be resuming my role as a friendly usher at Faneuil Hall, this time for a concert with the Boston Classical Orchestra.

On that fine and cultural note, I bid thee farewell!

pet:)