Masters of the Mountain

We did not sell the Wayland house, after all. But we are in the midst of our big move.

With three sales offers bing-bang-bing, we began packing in May thinking the house would be under new ownership in no time. Soon, with so much of our life in boxes and totes, we were camping out in our own house. No paintings or photos on the walls. Two drinking glasses. Two dish towels. You get the picture. However, all three offerers backed out, followed by a steady parade of people who liked the house, but . . .

So our big move is moving back into our own house.  Right now, Roy is putting up the birdhouse Rob and Rachel gave us last Christmas. I've opened three "kitchen" cartons, discovering two lovely sets of drinking glasses, cloth napkins, placemats, cookie sheets, egg cups (a necessity for my London cockney husband), and more. Wow.

New birdhouse on chimney.

After a summer of displaying flowers
in jars and milk jugs, we have
unpacked a decent bud vase.

To celebrate this momentous un-change in our lives, we took off early Thursday morning for New Hampshire and a drive up Mount Washington Carriage Road in Alice, my Honda Accord.

Here you go, with us. These are some of the photos I shot.

We have stopped to pay the entry toll.
Our goal is the pointed peak on the left.

Brave souls approach the edge. Clouds vie with
mountains and valleys for the "Most Spectacular" award.

Shadows of clouds race across the mountains.
Yes, we are on the edge of vertigo.

There were lots of wide shoulders in the road, where travelers
 were encouraged to stop and rest their horsepower.

Looking back down upon the road we had just ascended,
that white tracery on a green shoulder of the mountain. 

A road like this brings out the best of Roy's "Boston Coach" driving, but the worst of his wife-teasing. He was driving with one hand and shooting pictures with the other. He, being the driver, was seated over the center of the road, while I, in the passenger seat, was on the edge of destruction at every switchback and often in between. It seemed to me that as we climbed all the vehicles coming down were out-sized pick-ups or obese SUVs, giving us barely a lip of road without a single guard rail.

One last attempt to scare you, too.
But the exhilaration far exceeds the  fright.

Climbing through this mountainscape is a life-changing experience.
I suppose the immediate effect will wear off, but I still feel that my being has expanded to fill that vast space.

We've reached the top, just under the clouds. This is one
of several parking lots. Even on a weekday, there was a
steady stream of vehicles up and down the auto road.

Hot and muggy in the valley, cool and muggy a mile in the sky. Mount Washington hosts some of the world's most strenuous weather. I lost several shots when strong gusts of wind pushed at my hands.

Passengers lining up to get back into the cog railroad train
-- the other way to scare yourself silly getting to the top
of Mount Washington. Visitor center just visible.

The third way up and down is to hike. Hikers generally
swagger through the crowd, flashing their outback hats
and walking sticks. Someday I'm coming back to sit in one
of those log chairs for an hour to watch the weather change,
and change, and change again.

Part of the business end, a weather
and communications station.

Ditto.

Could be an alien spy fortress.

Roy (wearing the shades) awaiting his turn at the very summit.
Actually, he never got that turn, but he took a picture of me behind the
summit sign. You won't see that photo here -- maybe on his Flikr page.

Here is a bit of summitry, conviviality between proud drivers. Roy, the former executie car driver, and this couple who had pulled up beside us at a viewing point parking lot in their exceedingly shiny, 
red classic Mustang.

Taken from the l-o-n-g stairway to the summit.

We began our descent. On the way down, the turn-outs
are for cooling one's brakes.

Looking down at the base camp 8 miles back and
almost out of this picture, the atmospherics
make this a hazy, unretouched  photo. 

One last look at the mountains. 

Apparently, I didn't take any photos of the lower parts of the road, nor any that would confirm that we made it down. No, wait! I can take a proof-shot or two now.

Our certificate. Roy inscribed both our names,
his qualifies as "master", mine as "survivor."

You'll never see this glued to Alice's bumper, but it's for real!

All kidding aside, I highly recommend climbing Mount Washington. Perhaps nowhere else on earth can the average citizen get such an eyeful of scenery and a chance to look at the earth as it once was.

Idylls of the Queen

My parents' philosophy was, that with all of Maine's natural resources right at our door, my brother and sister and I had no need for children's summer camp. And it was true. We were within walking distance or a short drive of several lake or river swimming holes, picnic spots, and hiking trails. The ocean, whether sand beach or rocky shore, was only an hour away. But with all respect to you, my parents, I now know that EVERYONE needs to spend at least one week a summer at a cabin by the water in Maine. And I learned that this summer.

My daughters and our families rented a cabin on Highland Lake in Bridgton, Maine, in July -- a first for us. None of us live in Maine at present, yet we still think of Maine as the summer Place to Be.  As always, I have some pictures to show you. 

First of all, the beach. Sandy. Warm water. A nice balance of sun and shade. I raked bushels of waterlogged pine spills off the bottom to make more of the clean water available for water play.

Rachel and her friend Margo, with Leah's children, Kaleigh
 and Gavin, on the water monsters. 

Rachel's friend Marguerite watches as her little Jacques
patiently fills and fills, and fills his ditch with "cho-it milk".
Kaleigh is in the process of constructing a sand turtle.

One hot morning we climbed to Emerald Pool,
somewhere (I'm not tellin' where) in the White Mountains.

The scale is that the ledge in the upper left corner of the photo is about 12 feet above the water, but the pool is so deep and the rocks so configured that it is safe for people to jump off. If they do, they receive a shock at the icy coldness of that beautiful water. My style is not to jump in, so I get no credit in the "adventuresome" column; but I gradually accustom myself to the cold (self-induced hypothermia, I suppose), enabling me to stay in the longest.

We had the pool to ourselves for our splash time and lunch,
then several groups of campers stopped by.
Though out of focus, this shows how much the pool
is beloved by hikers hot from clambering mountain trails.

Daughter Leah (far right, below) is an artist and art teacher, so part of the week's fun was for her to give a master class for the rest of us. 

Left to right: Rachel, Gavin, Rachel's Rob, Kaleigh, and Leah.
We are on the town green in Waterford, sketching
old New England residential architecture. 

A long-time family friend, Ruth Fearon, lived year-round on Highland Lake. Every day during the swimming season she and some friends would swim across the lake and back, guarded by Ruth's husband, Wendell, in their canoe. My daughters can remember some fun times at their house, including joining Ruth on that swim. I cannot truthfully remember if I did that swim 'way back then, but Rachel and Leah got the idea that I could -- and should -- do it now. Rachel, herself a long-distance swimmer, made it over and back lickety-split. Leah accompanied us in Elaine Gallant's kayak, trying to keep watch over the aquatic hare and turtle. It took me at least an hour, but I DID IT.

Sara and Rachel at the mid-point of their big swim. Photo by Leah.

I had a nice picture of the view from the deck of our cabin, but I cannot find it. We loved it. The neighbors called it "the upside-down house" because the bedrooms are on the ground floor and the living rooms on the second floor. We found that design ideal, however. 

The cabin was across the street from the lake, so the second floor deck gave us almost as good a water view as though we had been in a waterfront cabin. Lots of fragrant trees, loons and other birds galore. We could eat in the dining room or on the spacious deck. Great place to entertain friends and family, which we did all week. 

Special commendations go to Leah's Eric, who only had two days at the cabin before he had to return to work in Missouri, and to my Roy, who gave Eric a ride to Logan Airport and stayed the rest of the week in the super-hot suburbs of Boston, working on the showings of our house. It was super-hot in Maine, too, but we were equipped, not only with the lake and mountains, but with air conditioning -- and dishwasher and washer/dryer, making this the easiest vacation outside of Club Med. Hence my otherwise unexplained post title, "Idylls of the Queen." That's exactly what I felt like, queen-mother of all I surveyed. 

I should put in a good word for our rental agency, Krainen Realty of Raymond, Maine.