There was lots of rain, and with only weekends, we didn’t get out to see too much until we were able to get to the Minute Man Ntn’l Historical Park. This the 16 mile road that the British took, to retrieve some cannons that were stolen while putting down the Revolutionary resistance, ending at the North Bridge with the Shot Heard ‘Round the World and the British retreat to Boston. The story is told at the visitor’s center and in plaques and buildings along the road. We saw where Paul Revere was captured, he was later questioned, and released (in time to join the resistence), the pub were early revolutionary leaders met, and learned how the NY forts we saw earlier this summer played a part in the revolution. It was really cool, being able to picture the 700 British soldiers marching, confident in the early hours of the day, only to end up surrounded by over 4,000 farmers and local people who showed up to push them back. Also throwing in pics of Jim, part of the farm and some kid stuff. I suck at video, so I didn’t capture Jim shooting the baseball for the gender reveal, but G-Kind #2 is a GIRL! 🙂

We had to see the Red Sox to be able to see Fenway, so we put on our Cardinal shirts, boarded Mass transit and went anyway. The Orioles were in town, it was a beautiful day and we got to spend a game in the oldest baseball stadium in the country. The seats might be from 1912, too 🙂 It made me miss the Cards at Busch, but baseball is good and beggars can’t be choosers. Everyone was friendly and happy in a pretty mixed crowd, there were lots of fans for each team. And, of course, more pics of the kid.

We hiked a total of about 4 miles, 3.5 miles in one place and about .5 in the other to see some cool falls. Areuthusa Falls are the highest in New Hampshire, falling about 200 feet. To get there, you have to cross the Bridge of Khazad Dum, but if you make it, you also get to see the Bemis and Coliseum Falls. We then drove the Kangamangus Highway and stopped to see the Sabbaday Falls.

There was a bit of excitement when a bunch of the … professionally installed wires melted down in the electric box. Apparently the wires were correct, but the breaker was a 60 instead of a 50, so, we had an exciting morning until that was fixed. Honestly, I’m amazed it didn’t happen sooner. Anyway, I picked a NY State campground based on distance from here, not really paying attention to where it was. We got really lucky, Crown Point State Park is on the banks of Lake Champlain and has a lighthouse on site. Across the street are ruins of two forts, one French and one British from the 1700s. It was incredible, the history, the re-enactors, but also seeing the ridiculous amount of work people did in that time. The French quarried stone from the site and built a 4 story fort on the banks of the lake, with walls 16 feet thick in some parts. The British came, and on their retreat to Canada, the French blew the fort up. Instead of rebuilding, the British used the rock from the French fort and quarried more rock and built a much bigger fort just behind the old French fort, higher on the hill. They ended up accidentally blowing their fort up when a cooking fire got out of control and hit the room where the powder was stored. They mostly moved out, but left a small contingent, who ended up surrendering to Gen. Seth Warner from Fort Ticonderoga. Twenty miles south, Fort Ticonderoga had a similar dramatic history. Built in 1755 by the French, taken by the British in 1758, taken by Americans in 1775, then back to British and German combined forces in 1777, then fired on and destroyed by Americans two months later (using cannons they captured from the British). It was an amazing weekend, perfect weather, beautiful scenery (though smoke from fires came in) and American history.

What an amazing weekend – we had perfect weather and were able to see both places the pilgrims landed here, first on the tip of Cape Cod, then at Plymouth. Jim’s bike broke a spoke a short time into our first ride, we had planned on riding all weekend (there’s a cool rails to trail on the cape), so we changed plans and drove around, taking in the dog friendly beaches (we saw seals right off the coast!) and lighthouses, visiting P-Town, and did a couple hikes. Many of the lighthouses have been moved due to crumbling cliffs, but we were able to see quite a few, including the one pictured on Jim’s favorite chips 🙂 Also, we learned that there were several places that used multiple lighthouses in one place to give locations. We saw the 3 sisters, 3 small lighthouses (also moved) that were located on a specific beach to distinguish them from the single lights nearby. The P-Town hike begins with a 1.5 mile walk across the rock causeway that connects the peninsula to a small island with a lighthouse, so is best tackled at low tide. The rocks were not all placed flat and there were some gaps… Nickel was not amused. In Plymouth, we saw Plymouth Rock and listened to compelling evidence from a Park Ranger that this is, in fact, THE rock that the Pilgrims stepped on to get off of the Mayflower, as well as a story about the engineer who built the current building around the rock too small. Plymouth Rock was attached to a larger boulder beneath the sand, that was not taken into account and the building wouldn’t sit flat, so a large piece was broken off the bigger boulder. Plymouth Rock had been separated from the boulder some years earlier, as it’s been moved around the region for one reason or another. We were also able to see the National Monument to our Forefathers.

Fort #4 was the Northwestern most holding in the British empire in the early 1700’s. It was a ‘civilian fort’, which meant that 10 families paid for a charter to Massachusetts to build their homes 30 miles from the nearest settlement. They chose to build them with touching walls, in a square. They also dug a 4 foot trench around the buildings and buried posts to protect them from being attacked. They were attacked repeatedly, by Native Americans, as well as the French, their crops (outside the fort) were burned repeatedly, their men were taken hostage and/or killed, and flaming arrows were shot in, setting the homes on fire. Some of the families had 12 children, which I can’t even imagine. When state lines were re-drawn, the families had to re-pay their charter to the new state, New Hampshire. There were very few people there when we were, and the volunteers who re-enacted life at the time were amazing, spending a lot of time with us and giving detailed descriptions of how they made cloth from flax and talking about how politics played a role in these people’s lives. Also, an announcement from Ash and some face time pics.

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Our 26th anniversary was celebrated at Hampton Beach with fireworks and a Rodney Atkins concert. We got a bike trailer for Nickel so that we could go riding without leaving her behind. She got used to the idea after she figured out that we would still let her out to run. So, she runs for a while, then rides when she gets tired, it’s been great. We were able to go on a couple different trails so far. And, we went tent camping for the first time in a LONG time! Tent sites are easier to find and we don’t always want to pull the house into a park that we haven’t been to before, so we don’t always know if we’ll fit or not. We wanted to do this last summer, but never got the gear, so we’re going to start going more now, starting off at Silver Lake. Of course, adding some pics of the kids. I’ve heard that this format (no collage) makes the pics easier to see, so I’ll start doing that more.

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We met the Ramsays for a trip up Mt. Washington, the highest peak east of the Mississippi. We were able to take the cog train for the ride and watch the Ramsays as they put together video and pictures for one of their upcoming videos. The top was very cold, windy and cloudy, so we didn’t get much of a view, but it was really cool to see the museum and all the history that’s happened up there. The Appalachian Trail crosses the tracks in a couple places and there are cairns all over the place as there is often heavy fog. Upon advice of a fellow work camper, we at at the Red Arrown in Manchester, NH and Jim happened to be given a seat previously occupied by Hillary Clinton. After several more days of rain, we got a break on the 4th, so we hiked in Winslow State Park in NH, to the top of Mt. Kearsarge. And… a pic of the kid eating M&Ms with both hands. 🙂

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In the spirit of finding new things, I found Diet Birch soda water – I believe the flavoring is from Birch tree sap, but I haven’t tried it yet. Then, our friends Gordon and Alice of Roaming with the Ramseys and Nickel’s nemesis, Skye showed up for a couple days as they are passing through for a North Eastern summer of their own. We were able to see The Flume and where the Old Man of the Mountain once stood with them. At the Man of the Mountain – there are metal outlines of what he used to look like and where, based on your height, which was marked in the cement. Was an awesome day catching up and seeing some gorgeous scenery. Jim and I also visited Portland, ME, walked around a lighthouse and got some lobster from a food truck. Then, while checking out a state park beach nearby, found a guy who catches and sells lobster commercially and also sells it to the public. Super nice guy and he even steamed it for us. We also got to spend some quality time under the camper, we had to fix the valve on the black tank (more than once….there’s a learning curve), so we also replaced the insulation and met some of our arachnid neighbors up close. I’ve heard that you can’t make the pics larger, so I’m trying a different format for part of this, please let me know if you like it better.

We headed to Vermont to hike the Quechee Gorge (pronounced Kee-chee). It was a very easy couple of miles on a well maintained, flat path. We also went into Woodstock, VT, a beautiful town with some historical sites surrounding Calvin Coolidge and an 1800s dairy farm that is still active. We’re going to go back to see the farm so that we can go on the tours without leaving Nickel in the truck. We stopped at a little graveyard and were able to see graves of 10 Revolutionary War soldiers. Then we headed to Sugarbush Farm, a small family farm that taps ~10k trees a year and makes their own pure maple syrup. They have cows that contribute milk to a co-op that makes cheese that they bring back and smoke and sell onsite. They offer samples of everything they sell (very smart move) and you can walk the grounds and see their syrup making room. They’ve definitely ruined us for fake syrup going forward, they offer 4 grades all of which, in addition to the cheeses and jam was delicious.

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