Odds and Ends

Wild life update!

Hello my name is Marty and I am a stuffed moose

It is a KOA night and true to form this one is in the middle of two major roads. One is an interstate and the other a local highway. Traffic noise is not too obnoxious and being city dwellers we are accustomed to a bit of clatter. Did I ever mention the time we tent camped at Lake Shuswap in BC? Only a wooden fence separated our young family from the rail road tracks and the trains thundered through all night long. At one point the Fella thought a train was about to come through the tent. Those were the days, eh?  We have long since graduated to hard sided camping and this rental does the trick for us.  It is a bit peculiar though as the door of the RV has a picture of children looking as if they are waiting to get out. And the children confused a woman who thought they were real but disappeared when the Fella opened the door.  No, I would not want to spend any longer than a couple of weeks in this thing but it's cozy.

The Cave

Ok, now some fun facts to ponder...

Keep your nose to the grindstone --an expression that we've all used to represent persistence and hard work. The meaning is derived from a time when grist millers -literally-put their nose next to the grinding stone to be sure the grain being ground was not getting too hot. Burning or charring the product would ruin it.

Sleep tight  -my family used this phrase to wish a good sleep to all and maybe yours did too. Prior to the box spring, tied ropes were  used as a platform for a mattresses. Tight ropes were optimal and saying sleep tight was a way to wish a comfy bed.  Moving from rope beds, let's talk cameras and the humans behind them.

 Scenic byways and fall leaves bring out the cameras  -whether they be phone, digital SLR, or point and shoot. We all seem to want the same shot at the same time and jaysus don't you know that we all try to inch our way over to just the right spot for that perfect picture. But just as the shutter clicks, some dude or dudette steps right in front of you and your Kodak moment becomes the back of some stranger's head. Does this happen to the pros? I dunno but I do think there is a bit of Ansel Adams or Georgia O'Keefe  in all of us. More random stuff...

Moose crossings  -there are many warnings of moose on the loose in both Vermont and New Hampshire and we here at Moose and Mosquito Tours take these very seriously. But we have seen no moose, not one, nada, zip, zero, none.  Vigilance must be maintained and yours truly can only hope for a moose sighting.

Today's adventure was abbreviated due to inclement weather and a rather long business call made by the Fella. We drove the White Mountain Scenic Byway and as fate would have it wound up at the Mt. Washington Cog Railroad. Finished in 1869, it claims to be the first mountain cog railroad in the world. We paid the fare -a bit spendy at $65 a piece- and rode it to the top of Mt. Washington. It seemed fitting since we are from the great state of Washington.

Washingtonians on Mt Washington

The next adventure was to be driving Franconia Notch Parkway and we did but were delayed due to a long bit of Camp Parsons business that I won't get into here.  If you detect a bit of annoyance in my tone, you are correct.  By the time we got to Franconia Notch, the rain was falling. The Old Man in the Mountain was not visible due to rain and cloud cover and the fact that the natural granite outcropping actually broke and fell down in 2003. I suppose you can look up at where it was and imagine... We arrived at the Flume Gorge and Covered Bridges exhibit at closing...no exceptions it was too late to buy tickets. Sigh but it was a good day, and it is about the leaves.

Just driving along