So after spending a nice bit of time at Sarah’s Hat Boxes I took my mother out on part two of today’s adventure: Willard Pond. It wasn’t that far away and was super easy to get to. I’d heard about Willard Pond many times but hadn’t made it out there. I was told it was however beautiful – it’s a small protected lake in Antrim NH which has no houses on its shores and does not allow motors of any kind on the trails or in the water, basically a preserve.
The entrance to the lake is located at the end of a long dirt road that drags you pretty far out into the middle of the woods before it just ends at a dirt parking lot. It was here that I found a portapotty which I thought was a bit odd until I realized it appeared to be a popular swimming hole or if I am being more accurate a series of swimming holes which would explain the squealing delighted child running towards the parking lot – towel flapping in the wind until he lost it, a gaggle of women all giggling over the little scene, a series of other small children taking no notice.
We passed two trail heads before reaching the lake itself and yes, it was beautiful. Today was a gorgeous day out, not too hot, not too humid, and there was a most refreshing breeze coming off the blue-blue water. I took a couple snaps of the swimming hole before deciding to check out the trail to the right which I figured must go around the whole pond. It went up a small hill where a nice rock outcropping was before leading us through a wild blueberry patch and to small dam. There was no bridge across but the two people ahead of us just walked right over it, splashing in an inch of water. I figured I’d try going across with my shoes on. That probably wasn’t the wisest idea… As the trail went on we discovered a series of smaller more private swimming holes, many of them occupied by small groups of people. As we hiked deeper into the woods the trail got increasingly hairy. Personally, if I were alone, I would have kept trucking right through it until I couldn’t anymore. My mother on the other hand said something about not getting her somewhere where I couldn’t get her out. I sighed, she’s probably right, and so we headed back. I will likely be back to check out the two named trails between the parking lot and pond.
I took a long winding nonsensical route home and passed a bunch of other things that I am going to put on my list to check out later – everything from other quirky local businesses to hiking trails and farms. Mother wasn’t as keen on going 4 wheeling with the RAV as I was and twice yelled at me to not listen to the GPS and just stay on main roads. Her sense of adventure isn’t as deep as mine, clearly. I did however pull over to read a random historical marker in Stoddard – I guess the town used to be known for glass. Who knew!
This area was so sweet and rich in things to see and do that I know I will be back soon.
A few days ago a friend invited me to meet him at the Deerfield Fair. I said sure, I could use a day out, and we planned to meet each other at noon. Sounds good! Until I almost got to the exit into Deerfield, there were cars lined up for a mile in the break down lane. Oh shit… So I swung aside with them and twenty minutes later I found myself in Deerfield but just barely. I was five and a half miles from the destination and it was complete gridlock. Since I was at a standstill anyway I texted my friend who then called me and decided to come pick me up at the used car place I happened to be slinking by. I didn’t know why…. but I guess he and his friend were out on their motorcycles earlier and they wanted to come pick me up, drop off the cycles and my car at this other guy’s house and wander to the fair together as a group…. This is highly unusual for me. I don’t do vehicle hopping and I’m a shit passenger besides but seeing the traffic it just made sense to go as a group and use only one parking space.
My friend’s friend was an older guy who had clearly spent all of his youth living hard and hoping to die young. I hate seeing people like that old… their bodies completely spent, creaking at every joint, seemingly miserable at their lack of mobility… SIGH. But still! What he couldn’t do walking he sure made up for in driving. Ever wonder what it’s like to drive with Hunter S Thompson? AHHHHH HOLY ASS CRACKERS CHRIST! SLOW DOWN! A DEAD MAN’S CURVE! OH MY FUCKING GOD ANOTHER ONE! I imagine it would be a little like that. Also I want to take this moment to apologize to any passengers who may have been in my car while I was driving in a similarly terrifying manner. Know that I love each and every one of you and it’s out of my system now. Sorry.
To make a long story short we turned around and drove to Portsmouth, probably another 45 minutes or hour away, where I took a few lovely snaps of sea gulls and learned that lobsters have compound eyes. Ah, the things you learn when your food is staring at you! But really, we got some sort of sale and it was 4 lobsters for $32. They also got a combo plate to share between us filled with fried marine miscellany. I think there were steamers, scallops, and fries. And you know what I also learned? That fresh seafood, no matter the shape, all tastes the same when it’s fresh – like nothing. It’s really a texture thing or perhaps a “I need an excuse to eat tartar sauce” thing. Either way I am not complaining! And I was STUFFED TO THE GILLS. This place was really nice as it had a porch outside right on the ocean you could watch or feed the sea gulls from. It was quite relaxing! And here’s a few snaps of boats and seas shore when we parked down the street to check out their beach.
I finally got out on a little adventure today! I had tried to do so last weekend but I ended up driving by a lot of really crowded trail heads and noping my way home, not that there’s anything wrong with popular trails, I have just been in a very introverted mood these past few weeks. I wanted somewhere to go where I could really commune with nature and boy did I find the jackpot today! I found a gorgeous loop trail out in the middle of nowhere that was an introvert’s wet dream. Seriously. Ample parking, an adjoined center, and not a goddamn soul up there even though there were four cars parked there when I drove in.
I was a bit worried this trail was going to be a bit too much. I have been struggling this spring getting my body to comply with my wishes and am disastrously out of shape besides. I did some reading online and it said this trail was 4.9 miles and went to a mountain summit. It was considered “moderate” difficulty but in the reviews there was a family bragging their six year old made it up and back in two and a half hours. Surely, I could beat a six year old, no? I might even cry less. In any event I set out for this challenge.
The trail is located adjacent to the Harris Center which is where parking is provided. It was amazingly well marked. You’d have to be some sort of speshul to wander off it. And at first it’s all very lax and easy going, pretty flat, going the perfect pace for me. This trail allows dogs so I assume it’d be great for that. I was startled right off the bat with the serenity of this place. Usually when I go on these trails I can still hear or see cars going by down below. Not here, the farther into the woods I got the quieter it became until all I could hear were the pitter patter of chipmunks, a few mourning doves beating the tar out of each other, and my own heart beat. It was the sort of blissful silence I was looking for! Serendipity!
The trail starts out very flat and stays that way for quite a while, winding past a little bench area that looks over a lovely little pond that’s just filled to the brim with wee fish. Then it becomes very not flat, so if you’re not in for a bit of a work out from there I say just enjoy the pond and scurry back, otherwise you’re in for a climb. I had to take four breaks going up but I think if I were a normal person I probably could have handled it. When I got to the summit I must admit it was…. meh. It wasn’t nearly as beautiful as the trail itself! And I somehow walked past the second summit without even seeing it, so there was that…
Still, this was everything I wanted out of today. I got to see some tiny wildlife – even some sort of hornet laying eggs in the bark of a tree, I witnessed some sort of territorial dispute between the local dove community (and whoever thinks doves are peaceful creatures are out of their cotton picking minds) and saw an abundance of plant life. In fact I can’t wait to return in the fall when all the trees are colorful! Double points autumn is also mushroom season, triple points there are a bunch of other trails nearby. This was like a little slice of heaven! Highly recommended for the hiker who likes a moderate challenge and few other travelers to bug ’em.(Speaking of bugs this is my one and only complaint – I was nearly sucked dry by mosquitoes on this trail but I suppose… it is the season!)
Acadia is one of my favorite places to go. The park is enormous and has something to offer everyone. It has hiking trails of all levels and capabilities for the athletic among us but it also has a variety of stunning views you can either see directly out your car window or very easily access. If that’s not enough to tempt you there’s also a number of beaches both rocky and sandy and a few other attractions that lure the curious.
I have been to Acadia two or three times already, always off season, and I didn’t pay anything to get in because of this, but I guess I was either too early this year or they changed their policy. Some of the park remained free – like the drive up Cadillac Mountain, but by the time I got close to Thunderhole I approached a toll gate and had to fork over $25 for a week’s pass. That’s OK though, it was worth it.
This visit was a short one as I was busy socializing for most fo the day and only arrived at 2PM but I still packed a lot into a few hours! I especially wanted to drive to the summit of Cadillac Mountain to get a few nice foliage photos and enjoy the fresh mountain air. I was shocked how many people were here! But I guess when the weather is a freakish 70-some-odd degrees people are more likely to come out and enjoy nature at its finest. I stopped at several points to take a few snaps and enjoyed the summit as well as the Overlook at Blue Hill the most as far as the mountain went. I ended up shuffling out onto the bare rocks at the summit and enjoyed a bit of time just soaking in the view – which included all the colorful trees I could wish for, a delightful pond, a few islands off the coast, and unseasonably blue skies. It was hard not to stay here forever. Unlike many parks Acadia is open 24/7 all year long…. Obviously this means I must return once more… at night. The view must be amazing then! I wonder if you can hear loons or if wolves exist in the park…
Anyway, that flight of fancy erased from my mind I continued onwards, driving back down the mountain. On my way I had to stop the car to let a deer pass and took a shot out my car window of a second that was staring at me from a few feet away. I got one good snap before another car barreled by in the travel lane scaring them both off.
I wanted to see Thunderhole – which is this rock formation at the coast that makes a thunderous noise when the waves from the ocean rush through it. I have been told about it for years from all sorts of relatives ad friends and had yet to check it out… but first I passed Sand Beach, the main sandy beach in the park, and had to get out to amble for a bit. It was low tide. I had never been here during low tide. I must say all the exposed rocks gave it extra character! There wasn’t too many people there at this time of day, or year, certainly no polar bear swimming club to be seen, but there were a few families playing with nerf balls and kites. I’m surprised there weren’t any dogs – as they are allowed in the park.
Truth be told these people were probably all here to take advantage of the sunset which was closing in soon. It was a good vantage point for that – though not the best conditions today. It was a bit gray out.
I am feeling full of myself again. My energy is nearly back and I was delighted to go out today and spend the greatest time scampering along the Maine coastline. In honor of this month’s theme Haunted New England I decided to go in search of a castle ruin. I had found one article online boasting, “Take a hike and see a castle in Maine!” Sounded pleasant, though there were no photos or any real description just the cryptic remark that I could find it in Fort Williams Park. Okaaaay… I knew it was on the coast somewhere and figured it’d be in some quiet out of the way place, perhaps a nice nature trail through the woods to some burned out ruin like 
The park was busy! Wow! And the weather? Freakishly warm. I was wearing a T-shirt while staring at the frigid Maine seashore and I was sweating balls. My calendar says October but mother nature apparently thinks it’s June. I can go with that. I passed by some sort of abandoned building driving in and wondered if that was the castle or part of it. There were so many people but where were they coming from and where were they going? I couldn’t tell so I just started to walk, pretending I knew. I ended up at a beach, a really lovely little beach surrounded on all sides by rocky outcroppings and the remains of an old fort. Beyond the harbor there were two lighthouses. Bonus for me.
The first thing that really caught my curiosity was a decrepit ruin jutting from the rocks and looking very uninviting. Could I scramble over the rocks and get to it? Was I allowed? I decided to try it, all the meanwhile expecting someone to start hollering at me but alas no, this is Maine, where Darwinian population control is encouraged. It turns out it was the remains of an old mine, bolted shut with a metal door. Damn. There’d be no retrieving Lassie’s bones today.
After that I decided to see where some of the actual paths attached to the beach went. I was delighted to find myself outside an old battery. It looked rather castle-like but it was still obviously a fort. However not far away I could see something that looked far more castle like. Third time’s a charm. But first I wanted to go harass some funny looking sea birds so I scrabbled over some more pointy rocks to take a few snaps of them doing their birdy thing. I looked around me and on this jagged seaside cliff there were a few precarious benches. Yep, I’m in Maine.
I came upon the castle from the back and through the little snippet of woods. It made a coy entrance into my life using the trees like a shy bride uses a veil. OK so maybe it was just a burned out stone mansion and not a castle but still I couldn’t help but adore it. Today was awesome. People were awesome. I got asked if I had been here before by an old man. Nope! We sat and chatted for a good fifteen minutes. Poor dear lives in Los Vegas. Pity that. Had a lot of people smile, laugh, and compliment the hair. Apparently orange hair makes me more approachable? Well that’s a relief. Scientific studies seem to think wearing orange makes people more hostile towards you…
I stuck my tongue out at the drone and snapped it’s photo instead. GOTCHYA you buzzing little spy bastard! (Yes, I know, wedding photography, public place, it had a right to be there but still. Drones. UGH.)
I needed to escape the Love Canal house for my own health so I started to plan a trip to Maine. Two days later than planned my stomach pains finally let up enough for me to make a midnight trek and I landed softly and quietly in the wee morning hours after spending four hours cranking up the classic rock and caterwauling at the top of my lungs. I don’t know why people seem to despise driving long distances alone so much. I find it… liberating.
I really wanted to make the most of this week. I have a bunch of stops all planned out but today? Up, still got that alcohol-free hangover, and once again didn’t make it out by noon. No matter. I was on my way! I had decided after reading a series of glowing reviews to check out Rangeley Lake State Park, a two hour drive, in the hopes of catching some great foliage snaps. I planned on making September my Leaf Peeping month but the weather has been absolute whack this year and the trees are terribly confused. “Do I turn color now or…? Well I see a third of your leaves are colored buuut….” Lakes are great for foliage photos because if it’s a calm day you can get all those gorgeous colors reflected on the water.
There wasn’t much for foliage when I started out but heading into the mountains I was soon awash with bright reds, oranges, and a few yellows. Perfect. There was however quite a bit of road work, numerous flashing moose signs, and by the time I got to park I don’t think I had seen another car in twenty minutes. That always makes me a smidge hesitant. Lately I have had a lot of concerned citizens tell me I should be loaded up on mace, heavily armed, and walking a large dog wherever I go. Bears! Moose! Serial killers! Oh my! But I probably should take heed. Central Maine is the Bermuda Triangle of weird disappearances and murder mysteries. I always felt this was because, as comedian Bob Marley put it, “There’s four cops in Maine and they’re all busy following the one black guy that lives there.” Dark humor cuts deep. Also it’s rutting season which means there are horny roving bucks who can be quite dangerous… SIGH.
The drive to the park was drop dead gorgeous. Just imagine being surrounded on all sides by coral colored trees fluttering in the breeze as your car zooms at light speed through them. (The speed of light is the general consensus of locals on how fast cars should go on their roads… Speed limit signs aren’t even symbolic anymore. They’re more like a snarky backhanded “joke” about your inadequacies.) The park was however… rather dull!
This place would be AWSOME if it happened to be in the dead of summer and I had a carload of children I wanted to dump in the woods somewhere so I could force them to socialize with other Lord of the Flies styled foundlings. This had everything for that – camp sites, picnic tables galore, well beaten paths with no parking directly adjoining the camping spots, a beach, two outhouses, even a drinking fountain! Granted by now it was filled with leaves and the beach and camp sites were so empty that all you could hear was an apocalyptic wind blow by. But I was here and going to make the best of it.
I parked my car at the boat launching dock, as one does in a Prius to confuse people, and hopped out of the car with my camera. A middle aged guy on a motorcycle drove up, claimed one of the docking ports, and spent an awfully lot of time avoiding eye contact with me as I strode by. HI. I’m Typhani. I have bright orange hair, a purple plaid shirt, and sometimes I bite. Usually only on Fridays though so don’t worry. So went the imaginary conversation in my head.
I took a few photos of the mountains beyond the boat docks before heading into the woods where I found a trail leading to the beach. Goodie! This was a well worn path. So many tiny traipsing feet had gone by here that the path was more of a gaping maw in the ground where tree roots clung to a tenuous existence above ground.
Most days when I set out on an adventure I end up in Narnia, somewhere hidden and unexpected, somewhere full of whimsy and joy. I was expecting nothing short of this on Friday when I found myself once again crawling out of my own skin to get out. It’d been a week of bad insomnia and health issues so I didn’t get out until way later than I should have but I still had great hopes when I set off. I was going to go to Vermont, for what reason I wasn’t sure, and coming home from Vermont I was going to stop at a fabric store or two so I could purchase some cloth with which to start designing my own clothes. Little was I to know that day’s adventure would be more of a misadventure.
Somehow I came across Gifford Woods State Park as a destination. Another blogger had been around Kent Pond and took some lovely snaps when there was still snow on the ground. I figured this was a good starting place so ignoring the faintest pain behind my eye, a sure sign of a migraine to come, I hopped in the car, programmed the GPS, and set out on the two hour drive.
As usual the drive was gorgeous. I ended up winding down all sorts of country roads, through the mountains which where all starting to become flush with red, orange, and yellow. It made my heart beat just a little faster. I passed many places I wanted to check out but I knew I had to get to the trails soon because it gets dark in the woods several hours before it gets dark everywhere else and I was already trying to beat the clock.
I started entering the Killington area to find this was a community that seemed to be based on skiing. The mountains were striped with deforestation, the result of creating many ski paths down them, and the little businesses all seemed swanky and cute. I even passed a place called Cyco Bikes. Vermont has always been super fond of punderful business names.
I think the answer was no but I was soon inundated with about eighty different things at once. This super friendly woman handed me not one but two maps and proceeded to point out about fifty different trails and why each was great as well as directions to them because none of the ones she was pointing out attached to the parking lot (I think that was the one trail she didn’t mention!) Some had old hardwood trees which I am sure are nice but if I remember right most of the trees that turn color are soft wood. Some had waterfalls. Some were a three hour hike and attached to other trails, some were fifteen minutes. Eventually she got to the pond. I asked politely about that one. Again she gave me two different answers. I could go out of the parking lot, take a left, and take it from there for a two to three hour trail or I could go some other farther away destination down several roads and have a fifteen minute hike and some waterfalls. I did the first as her second set of directions completely baffled me.
I found a spot near where I parked the car that looked like it could be a trail, be it a horribly overgrown one. So I entered and found myself about five inches deep in mud. Whatever this was had all sorts of shoe prints going in two directions at a tiny fork. I went towards the lake and slogged through the muck about twenty feet before the foot prints dried up and I was hit with even deeper mud and a wall of forest. I tried the other side and came across the same issue. I left. Maybe it was on the other side of this little beach? There did seem to be some sort of path through the reeds behind the bulletin board… I was able to walk maybe thirty feet on that “path” where I could see a beaver lodge but unless I wanted to swim the rest of the way around the lake there was no way around that. Clearly based on the footprints I wasn’t the only one having this problem.
Annoyed I left. I figured I could find a trail, any trail, and find something good on it, so back to the car I went. The problem is I am still driving the borrowed Prius and this was not the area to be driving a Prius. It was a fifty mile an hour road where all the locals were going seventy and they were pissed if you wanted to stop at one of these trail heads or slow down in any way. I didn’t even have a chance because upon leaving the parking lot I was greeted with a steep hill and the Prius refused to pick up speed. I got to fourty, maybe forty five, and a pick up behind me was up my tail pipe from out of nowhere. He was driving so fast and aggressively I thought I’d be nice, pull over, and let him pass. That didn’t make him happy either as he blared his horn as he whooshed by. I don’t know what he expected me to do… I can only press the gas pedal so far. If the car refuses to go the car refuses to go and we are on a fucking mountain after all. This happened a couple times until I finally found another trailhead, the Sherbourne Trail. This time there was a huge sign aside the road and a very obvious parking lot. Granted I could not find this particular path on the map.
I got out. There were numerous people, all accompanied by mountain bikes. One look at the path and I knew that’s what it was for, not for hikers, even though it wasn’t marked as such with any signage. Fuck it. It was a little over a mile long, claiming to be a “mountain pass.” I thought why not, mountain passes have summits, and that would be perfect for some foliage photos. Up I went zigzagging and stepping aside whenever I heard a bike coming up behind me. The cyclists were all super sweet and some were even laughing, all of them thanked me for stepping aside.
There wasn’t much to see here… a number of mossy rocks but not much else. A few times I came across a smell that was wonderful and sweet and brought me right back to my childhood but I couldn’t tell you what it was. Since the trail zigzagged and branched a few times I was trying to keep focused on the orange trail markers…. but I think whoever was putting them up was colorblind because they’d inadvertently turn pink from time to time for no reason. Usually when this happens it means two trails are converging. I saw no evidence of this.
I ended up where there was some sort of construction. Two twenty something year old men were putting down a bridge. I hadn’t passed that before… did I? How the hell did I get here? And more importantly did I have the courage to fess up and admit I was lost? Not at first. I passed them, knowing immediately that was the wrong decision when my poor little converses sank in the mud. I hadn’t passed mud…. this was the wrong way… but I still had my pride. I walked a little ways but this time the sound of cars was so distant I could barely hear them at all. My back up plan was to find a road and hitchhike back to the car if, God forbid, I ended up truly and utterly lost. I headed back, sheepishly, and asked where the fuck I was. I had a nice little chat with these two very friendly guys, and one of them said, “Go out to the intersection and take a left. Keep taking lefts. You’ll end up back at the parking lot.” Thank God I knew which trail head I had come or they wouldn’t have known where to send me either. They sheepishly admitted this trail was brand new and as of yet poorly marked. I didn’t even see the intersection coming up… but I saw it going back and kept going, and going, and going, until as promised, about a mile and a half away, sat the Prius, also looking sheepish, it somehow found itself cuddled up to another Prius (with a bike rack??) and a horse trailer. The horse trailer made me laugh. Clearly someone else didn’t know this was a bike path so I’m not that numb after all.
By now I was overheated, dehydrated, exhausted, and my migraine was starting to kick in full force. That’s never a good thing when you’ve got nausea and have to navigate down curving mountain roads and psychotic 180 degree loop-de-loop styled New England exits. By now it was five in the evening. I’d been on that trail for more than two hours. There’d be no extra foliage shots on the way home for me and I wouldn’t be stopping at any fabric stores either with my head pounding like this. About fifty minutes from home I started getting super sick and started to look for places to pull off the road and take a nap but by then all the picnic areas and rest stops seemed to have disappeared. As I entered Keene, thirty five minutes from home, I debated stopping in the city somewhere but by then it was only thirty five minutes. I could handle it, couldn’t I? Driving by was a decision I soon regretted as I stared at the clock every five minutes, watching it tick down, desperately wanting to be home. By the time I pulled in the driveway it took all my strength not to open the car door and just barf all over the ground. I was crazy dizzy as I tottled back to the house and collapsed immediately into bed. Better luck next time? I sure hope so!
