Ya know, memory is a funny thing... Allison first came to this camp as a counselor in 1989, and now that she has returned, she keeps 'remembering' places and things she did as a counselor that she'd like to visit or do again.. but the fog of 23 years makes for some good humor...
Take the 3-mountain lake, for example. Allison waxed eloquent about this lake that was nestled in between 3 beautiful mountains... the way she described it, I'm thinking we re-discovered Cuiviénen, the long-lost lake where Tolkien's elves first awoke under the stars of Middle-Earth. And just like Cuiviénen, Allison has no idea where the lake is... so she asks some of the locals, and they quickly tell her that it's Echo Lake in Franconia Notch State Park. So... we look at pictures online, and she says.. no. That's not it. A little while later, she vacillates and says it is... then she says it isn't. It just makes me smile.
Another memory she has (and this is pretty close to verbatim): "a place with... walls... kind of narrow.. water coming down... lots of steps... really pretty... let's go there" Right. In this case, however, she manages to actually find said place on the web: Flume Gorge, also in Franconia Notch State Park. And based on that coincidence (which really isn't a coincidence since both of those geographical features have been there for some time)... we now knew what we were going to do on July 4th!
Of course, the day did not start off as swimmingly as I had hoped. To give the short version (which is rare for me): Awoke early/van run for diet coke and breakfast/flat tire/everything closed for 4th/nearest Walmart with Tire Center an hour away/halfway there is town that is SHUT DOWN for an annual 4-mile run/delayed 20 minutes waiting for cops to open the only road to Wal-mart that doesn't go 2 hours out of the way around Long Lake/Spent 20 minutes sending brain waves to participants that it's supposed to be a RUN/2 hour wait at Walmart/would have been first customer if I arrived 15 minutes earlier/just managed to get back through that town before the parade started/finally got back to pick up a very hungry Allison at almost noon.
Whew.
[caption id="attachment_164" align="alignleft" width="300"]
Cafe Noche in Conway, NH[/caption]
Not a good start to the day. So, brunch became lunch. And Allison's choice was "Cafe Noche" in Conway. I usually have a standing rule about having Mexican food north of the Red River. With rare exceptions... I just don't do it. (It's an easy rule to understand). But we tried this place because it was supposed to be pretty good. And it was, for the most part. Tortillas weren't great, but that's the part even some Texas restaurants can't get right... I decided to go with the fajitas... and if you're gonna eat Mexican north of the Red River, you might as well eat Buffalo Fajitas, right? Actually, the buffalo meat made a fine fajita... it was very, very good.
[caption id="attachment_165" align="alignright" width="225"]
Flume Gorge[/caption]
We hurried out of Conway before their parade started, and headed up the Kankamagus Highway (I love that name), which goes over the White Mountains to the central portion of New Hampshire. We arrived at Flume Gorge, paids our moneys and started our trek. They do have a bus we could have taken... but it only went about a 1/5 of the way anyway, so that was kind of useless. The gorge was every bit as pretty as Allison remembered... a natural cutting in the mountains that looks like a man-made logging flume. Once we got to the top, we chose to complete the full circuit, rather than just going back down the way we came.
[caption id="attachment_166" align="alignleft" width="300"]
Deep pool at Flume Gorge[/caption]
Along the way, we saw a beautiful deep pool that I was about ready to jump into... it was very humid and warm by that time. After traversing a covered bridge across the river, we took note of the "Wolf Den", which was a narrow passage through the rocks that visitors were welcomed to try.... it became narrower the further you went in and eventually would require crawling on your hands and knees before you came out further down the main path. We walked right on by, and when we got to that point, said "Oh look! This is where one would come out of the Wolf Den!"
[caption id="attachment_167" align="alignright" width="225"]
Two Black Dogs Pub[/caption]
After we were done with the Gorge, we drove north past the aforementioned Echo Lake, and returned to North Conway via the Crawford Notch, where the Saco River has its headwaters... this allowed us to enter North Conway from the north side, which is very important on July 4th because of the horrible traffic... we met Allison's mom and a group of folks for dinner at the Two Black Dogs English Pub, then settled down in the town square for some fireworks.
And waited for them to start while we got rained on. Remember that humidity? The storms started right after we got back in the car at the Gorge (one of the rare bits of good luck on this day). So, we sat and wondered if the fireworks would happen. Fortunately, a window in the rain occurred and they got the show off.... but it was the most surreal fireworks show I've ever seen. During the show, there was a lightening storm off in the background. So, the fireworks would go off, lighting up a portion of the sky, then the rest of the sky would light up behind it. God's fireworks were much bigger and lit more of the sky :)
In addition to the lightening, it was one of the most wind-less nights I've ever seen here. Absolute calm. That, plus the density of the water in the air, meant that when the fireworks went off, the smoke and particles from the explosions started to form a white cloud directly overhead... that did not dissipate. So, after about half the fireworks had been sent up, the rest all exploded behind a thick white "scrim", obscuring them from view. It really was the weirdest night of fireworks I've ever seen in my whole life.
All in all, a rather strange and, at times, trying day... but with some exquisite high points.
Oh, and the verdict on Echo Lake? After seeing it, Allison declared that wasn't it, because there wasn't a freeway running right by it. At least in her memory. I later looked it up to see if the freeway was built after 1989, but no such luck... it was built in the late 1950's. The current status of that particular memory, (as of 7/14/2012) is that it IS the lake she remembered. And that just changed again today.
Take the 3-mountain lake, for example. Allison waxed eloquent about this lake that was nestled in between 3 beautiful mountains... the way she described it, I'm thinking we re-discovered Cuiviénen, the long-lost lake where Tolkien's elves first awoke under the stars of Middle-Earth. And just like Cuiviénen, Allison has no idea where the lake is... so she asks some of the locals, and they quickly tell her that it's Echo Lake in Franconia Notch State Park. So... we look at pictures online, and she says.. no. That's not it. A little while later, she vacillates and says it is... then she says it isn't. It just makes me smile.
Another memory she has (and this is pretty close to verbatim): "a place with... walls... kind of narrow.. water coming down... lots of steps... really pretty... let's go there" Right. In this case, however, she manages to actually find said place on the web: Flume Gorge, also in Franconia Notch State Park. And based on that coincidence (which really isn't a coincidence since both of those geographical features have been there for some time)... we now knew what we were going to do on July 4th!
Of course, the day did not start off as swimmingly as I had hoped. To give the short version (which is rare for me): Awoke early/van run for diet coke and breakfast/flat tire/everything closed for 4th/nearest Walmart with Tire Center an hour away/halfway there is town that is SHUT DOWN for an annual 4-mile run/delayed 20 minutes waiting for cops to open the only road to Wal-mart that doesn't go 2 hours out of the way around Long Lake/Spent 20 minutes sending brain waves to participants that it's supposed to be a RUN/2 hour wait at Walmart/would have been first customer if I arrived 15 minutes earlier/just managed to get back through that town before the parade started/finally got back to pick up a very hungry Allison at almost noon.
Whew.
[caption id="attachment_164" align="alignleft" width="300"]
Cafe Noche in Conway, NH[/caption]Not a good start to the day. So, brunch became lunch. And Allison's choice was "Cafe Noche" in Conway. I usually have a standing rule about having Mexican food north of the Red River. With rare exceptions... I just don't do it. (It's an easy rule to understand). But we tried this place because it was supposed to be pretty good. And it was, for the most part. Tortillas weren't great, but that's the part even some Texas restaurants can't get right... I decided to go with the fajitas... and if you're gonna eat Mexican north of the Red River, you might as well eat Buffalo Fajitas, right? Actually, the buffalo meat made a fine fajita... it was very, very good.
[caption id="attachment_165" align="alignright" width="225"]
Flume Gorge[/caption]We hurried out of Conway before their parade started, and headed up the Kankamagus Highway (I love that name), which goes over the White Mountains to the central portion of New Hampshire. We arrived at Flume Gorge, paids our moneys and started our trek. They do have a bus we could have taken... but it only went about a 1/5 of the way anyway, so that was kind of useless. The gorge was every bit as pretty as Allison remembered... a natural cutting in the mountains that looks like a man-made logging flume. Once we got to the top, we chose to complete the full circuit, rather than just going back down the way we came.
[caption id="attachment_166" align="alignleft" width="300"]
Deep pool at Flume Gorge[/caption]Along the way, we saw a beautiful deep pool that I was about ready to jump into... it was very humid and warm by that time. After traversing a covered bridge across the river, we took note of the "Wolf Den", which was a narrow passage through the rocks that visitors were welcomed to try.... it became narrower the further you went in and eventually would require crawling on your hands and knees before you came out further down the main path. We walked right on by, and when we got to that point, said "Oh look! This is where one would come out of the Wolf Den!"
[caption id="attachment_167" align="alignright" width="225"]
Two Black Dogs Pub[/caption]After we were done with the Gorge, we drove north past the aforementioned Echo Lake, and returned to North Conway via the Crawford Notch, where the Saco River has its headwaters... this allowed us to enter North Conway from the north side, which is very important on July 4th because of the horrible traffic... we met Allison's mom and a group of folks for dinner at the Two Black Dogs English Pub, then settled down in the town square for some fireworks.
And waited for them to start while we got rained on. Remember that humidity? The storms started right after we got back in the car at the Gorge (one of the rare bits of good luck on this day). So, we sat and wondered if the fireworks would happen. Fortunately, a window in the rain occurred and they got the show off.... but it was the most surreal fireworks show I've ever seen. During the show, there was a lightening storm off in the background. So, the fireworks would go off, lighting up a portion of the sky, then the rest of the sky would light up behind it. God's fireworks were much bigger and lit more of the sky :)
In addition to the lightening, it was one of the most wind-less nights I've ever seen here. Absolute calm. That, plus the density of the water in the air, meant that when the fireworks went off, the smoke and particles from the explosions started to form a white cloud directly overhead... that did not dissipate. So, after about half the fireworks had been sent up, the rest all exploded behind a thick white "scrim", obscuring them from view. It really was the weirdest night of fireworks I've ever seen in my whole life.
All in all, a rather strange and, at times, trying day... but with some exquisite high points.
Oh, and the verdict on Echo Lake? After seeing it, Allison declared that wasn't it, because there wasn't a freeway running right by it. At least in her memory. I later looked it up to see if the freeway was built after 1989, but no such luck... it was built in the late 1950's. The current status of that particular memory, (as of 7/14/2012) is that it IS the lake she remembered. And that just changed again today.
