Back to work!

It's that time of year again when I'm feeling motivated to get EVERYTHING done. It doesn't hurt that we also just returned from a very rejuvenating and very necessary vacation. To unwind from a particularly busy and, dare I say, stressful few months, we decided to ditch PA and head up for a New England tour. I've spent little to no time in the New England area, so it was an exciting adventure to head up to the land of awesome foliage, right at the time for awesome foliage!

We started our trip by driving all the way to the end of 476 (it ends! who knew?) and into the great state of New York for a quick overnight layover in Albany. While in Albany we did little more than enjoy a night a lovely little hotel and managed to find a Hong Kong style Chinese food restaurant, complete with dim sum served starting at 9 am! What a great Sunday brunch before we continued on our way.

Your missing hair is your OWN problem

Anything that says pork belly is going in my belly

Egg Drop soup is my new favorite breakfast

Shrimp dumplings. There was actually a lot
more food, but it got eaten before I thought to
take a picture.

Seriously, who need french toast when you have
char siu bao for brunch?

After resting up in upstate New York, we headed to our first main destination: Russel Pond Campground in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. What a gorgeous place! Being there during the week in the chillier month of October, we had nearly the whole campground to ourselves. Well, ourselves and the wildlife. We were greeted upon arrival by a spry young moose! I'm sad to say I didn't get a picture of him as I was too terrified by the chance of him charging our car on the skinny mountain road we were briefly sharing, but all the same, I can check that one off my bucket list. 

After our moose encounter, we picked the perfect campsite and were greeted now by a rainbow overhead! If there is a better start to a vacation than a moosey welcome and a rainbow, I don't know what it is. We spent the next few days hiking, driving through the beautiful forest and surrounding areas and just reveling in the serious unrealness of just how amazing the scenery is up there. Even if the locals idea of "fun and easy" hike is a little different than mine, it was still a good time. And I can now say I climbed a mountain! Mount Hedgehog, because who could say no to a cute little mountain like that? Well, five hours later I probably could say no thank you, but the views couldn't be beat. 

Our home for a few days. Awesome campground!

Our welcome rainbow!

Best kind of hotel room

Way better than a pool. 

Cooking dinner

There were too many gorgeous views to capture
all of them in one trip.

On the side of the Kancamagus Highway.
If you don't like hiking, you could just drive that
road all day for amazing views.

Just crazy views EVERYWHERE

Seriously, everywhere!

The beginning of our climb on Mt. Hedgehog. We
looked so optimistic here!

Just beautiful for miles in all directions

We thought this was the top. It wasn't.

Not dying yet, but we didn't realize how much further we
had to go

Hard to see here, but this was so hard to
walk up! 

Getting closer to the top!

Tired as we were, it was definitely worth it

We didn't bring enough food with us and
were starting to get delirious.

Finally at the top. But we still had to get
back down...

Seriously, going down was the worst part. That
is why there are no more pictures after the summit.

Ok, one more panoramic.

After a long hike we were rewarded with an amazing sunset
back home at Russel Pond

Just the clearest, stillest water ever.

A walk around The Basin

Trying to decide if he should cross

Tom contemplating life at Artist's Bluff

More at Artist's Bluff

I DEFINITELY need to come back and explore more!

On our way out of town. I hate saying this, but
no filter necessary. This is just how beautiful
it is up there.

I'm no math whiz, but I would have to say that White Mountain National Forest has roughly one million mountains to climb and ten times as many great pictures to take. Apparently there are 48 peaks over 4000 feet in elevation. We know this because one of our campground neighbors just did his last climb to complete all 48! It took him over 20 years to do it, but considering he travels all the way from Ohio to climb, that seems like an appropriate amount of time. Now I'm not saying I'm cut out to try and join the Great 48 Club or anything, but I think I do have a new itch for some great mountain hiking.

While we were sad to say goodbye to the natural beauty and splendor of the White Mountain National Forest, it was cold and we were a little happy to get to the indoor sleeping portion of our trip. Next stop, Hanover, NH to visit our friend, Michael Butler Brown! He was kind enough to show us around the Dartmouth campus where he teaches and studies, then took us a local watering hole for quizzo where we did perfectly adequately, and let us crash with him before we kept meandering through New England.

Tom and Mike with their
 new friend, Robert Frost.

Canned Otter, field notes and pheasant
feathers to decorate the office of MBB.

They were so cute cuddled up together.

A very interesting book that I'm adding to my
to-read list!

Our final leg of the trip landed us in Rockport, MA, a coastal town full of rocky ports and lobstas. We were fairly lazy there, although I think we were ready for some lazy. Our Air BnB was an adorable, airy little apartment that was cute enough for us to barely leave, though we did leave on occasion to eat lots of shellfish. 

The part of Massachusetts is the Land of the Clam (at least, that's what I'll call it henceforth) so we made sure to eat plenty of clams (fried, stuff, and chowdered) in addition to the other shellfish feasts. We did try to do a few other things, like go on a whale watching tour and a witch tour of Salem. The witch tour was fun and we learned a bit of history as well as a bit of Wiccan and Pagan education, but the whale watching tour was kind of a bust. The sea was angry that day, tossing our not-so-little boat about and splashing everyone who was seated outside (we made the decision to come in just minutes before a giant wave soaked just about everyone out there). I don't get seasick, but I do get a little nauseous at the idea that our boat feels ready to capsize and that way too much water is coming in, so I was happy enough when they told us that we would be turning around. We got our money back, a free boat ride and the chance to not die at sea that day, so I wasn't disappointed. 

Our lobster roll lunch with the best fries in town

And our lobster dinner! $26 for 3lbs. of lobster
served on the back dock of a fish market.
It doesn't get much better than that.

Taking in the coast

Rock hopping

Sunset over the coast

The view from the jetty

Lone boat chillin'  on the water

Fishing birds!

More sunsets

The closest we came to a whale. We weren't
very close at all. 

Whole bellied fried clams. Heaven.

Salem graveyard with all the convicted "witches"

This house looks scary. It's not. The whole town
of Salem started letting their buildings look
more rundown in order to get that really
"witchy" vibe going on. It works. 

So now that we've returned and I'm almost done the 8 loads of laundry or so (what? we have a small washer) I see that it's almost time to return to the "real world" that I was so happy to escape. I'm not mad. Part of the nice part of vacation is it's brevity. I'm not going to say that I wouldn't be happy to road trip around the country with no timeline to follow, but I'm also not disappointed to return to the life that I've got at home. 

After returning yesterday, Tom and I realized that this was the longest we'd ever left our house that we've owned for just over a year now! And we missed our little house and our lives here. They're pretty good to us. 

Now, it's time to buckle down, save up some money for the next trip and in the meantime focus on my endless to-do's, around the house and in my life. The biggest one right now? Fold all that laundry... 

After Vacation To-Do List:

- endless laundry

- facials, pedicures and manicures (the camping life is rough on the old body)

- plan our next excursions (Halloween is coming up soon!)

- put the house back in order

- totally detox my diet after eating out way too much over the past week

- find some new recipes to try (seriously, eating out that much makes me want to do nothing but cook at home. I've already cooked all my food for the week!)

- try not to think about work until 8am Monday morning

So readers, what are some of your favorite vacations? Going abroad is cool, but what about some domestic excursions? Do your prefer visiting new cities or getting out into nature and the middle of nowhere? How can we add mini-vacation excursions more frequently into our regular lives? When I'm bored sometimes I daydream about vacations I want to take one day. Let me daydream about your vacations, too!