The super duper way overdue, but incomplete update

Amy:
written 7/3/05
Josh parts written 7/11/05

On June 22 we arrived in New Hampshire. I can't say that it was really everything I dreamed it would be. The whole place is very touristy and not even very much classy tourist stuff. Since we weren't really going to have the time to hike Mount Washington and since the weather looked promising we paid way too money ($18 for car+driver and $7 for a passenger) and drove up the Mount Washington Auto Road. For the way too much money you pay they provide you with an audio tour to play during your drive and a bumper sticker that says "This car climbed Mount Washington." We reached the top and it was still cloudy and windy and cold, so we headed into the main building. About 10 minutes later the clouds cleared and we had an awesome view of the surrounding area, and of course there are lots of pictures.
After our drive we visited the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) visitor's center to see what it was all about and see if we could find any new information. They had an extensive recycling facility, so we were able to rid ourselves of some of the items stacking up in the car.
We needed to find a campground and at the National Forest info center the lady told Josh about a place we should try (Josh: It was called the Kancamagus Hwy and at first she called it "the Kanc" and I had no idea what she was talking about.) We had to drive through a bunch of ugly tourist towns to get there. We stopped off for some Mexican food on the way at a restaurant we found on one of those tourist maps that are everywhere out east. (Josh: But before we stopped to eat we had to visit "the Local Bookie". There was a used book store by that name in Conway not far from the restaurant. We picked up about 7 new books for around 11 dollars because Amy was able to trade one of hers in and a bunch of the books were older, inexpensive paperbacks. We bought "The Man Who Walked Through Time" by Colin Fletcher, "Across China" by Peter Jenkins, "The Walk West: Walk Across America 2" by Peter Jenkins, "The Tracker" by Tom Brown, Jr., "Blue Highways" by William Least-Heat Moon (I think), and "The Heart of a Woman" by Maya Angelou, so we significantly beefed up our library) We found a campsite, bought some wood from the campsite hosts, Dick and Flo (yes, really), for our first campfire and then headed to the laundromat to wash our clothes. (Josh: Going to the laundromat is always an interesting people watching experience. On this particular visit, the people who stick out most were the three guys who would not stop talking about their motorcycles. A guy had been parked there who was doing his laundry and apparently another group of guys saw his bike and stopped and they started chatting to each other. Finally, the first guy had to come in and get his laundry, but two of the other guys came in with him and they were still talking and talking about their motorbikes and how hard it was to find a good place to ride them and a bunch of other stuff, all relating to motorcycles. In some ways it made me wish I had someone to talk about bicycles with. I could only wish they would get that into bicycles.) On our way back we picked up some marshmallows from the gas station next to the laundromat so we could roast them over our fire.

The next morning (6/23) we headed out and did a couple of short hikes around the Presidential range area of the White Mountains where we had been the day before. We did one up to a rock overlook and a couple of others to waterfalls. (Josh: The first hike we did was up to Square Ledge. It was only about .7 mile, but it was almost all uphill. It was pretty easy going, although still uphill, for the first part until we got to Hangover Rock, a big rock ledge that hangs at least 6-8 feet out over the trail. I had to duck a little to get through. After that it got significantly harder as we got up towards the rock ledge. Amy didn't think she could do it, but I prodded her, told her she could in fact do it, and helped her along if she needed it. We passed a big group of high school aged kids who were top-rope climbing the steep cliff of the ledge we were going up to. This means they had a setup similar to a climbing wall where there was an anchor at the top and someone at the bottom belaying, or holding, the rope in case they fell. They had three different ropes setup in different places. When we got to the top we had a nice view of the AMC visitor's center, Mt. Washington, and a the rest of the eastern presidential range. The hike down was less difficult than Amy had imagined it and after we were nearly back to the trailhead we took another mile long, but relatively flat, trail to Lost Lake.

We went back to the visitor's center and took off on another easy trail up to the Crystal Cascade. It was only about a 20 minute hike up a shallow hill, so of course there were TONS of people on it. Some other trails that lead up to Mt. Washington also leave from that trailhead. They go up into a couple of different ravines, Tuckerman and Huntington. Tuckerman apparently still had enough snow for skiing. There also have been many deaths from ice falling down these notches and hitting people. Apparently some of the ice chunks can be as large as cars. So there is a big sign at the trailhead saying things like "ice kills" and "be ice aware." But the best part was the little drawing of an ice chunk falling and these little stick men with hair running for their lives.

Next we drove down the road a little ways to get to the trailhead for Glen Ellis Falls. The trail was almost like a stone walkway down to the falls, which were magnificent. I'd love to see them after a good rain. They came down into a canyon and cascaded over a sheer cliff for about 40-50 feet down to the pool below.)

We decided to try a different campground that night, further down the road that had a weird name like Jigger Johnson, because it had showers (although they turned out to be the most expensive showers we've yet seen, $1 for 3 minutes). We also decided that we should find somewhere to watch Game 7 that night, with hopes that the Pistons would win. From our Resort Map (these crazy tourist maps they have in most of the cities out this way) we found a Chinese restaurant that advertised they had a sports lounge. Chinese food sounded good, so we headed there. Josh hadn't really had much to eat that day. We had stopped at a brewery/restaurant where he had mostly had beer (Josh: mmmm...beer) and a little of my food and I had chicken fingers and yam fries (Josh: mmm...yam fries). I had been craving chicken fingers for days and almost still didn't get them, but when Josh mentioned my craving to the waitress she told me they had them on the kid's menu and that I could order them coated with their buffalo wing sauce.

Anyway, back to the Chinese sports lounge. The ad was very misleading. They had two small tvs and a couple pool tables. They tv that the game was on had some issue with the sound and it kept cutting out, so we left. We headed to the only other bar we could find on the map, it sounded like a much better bet. We arrived mand found it to be about half full of redneck locals and the game not even on. They also had tvs that weren't on either. We found ourselves a spot in the corner and turned on the game. We were sad to find out that they kitchen closed at 9, so there was no dinner for us. What turned out to be even sadder though was that last call was at 11 and the place closed at 11:30, so we didn't even get to see the last 2-3 minutes of the game and see Detroit lose.