White Mountains (Gorham) NH

As we drove along, leaving Maine for New Hampshire, I realized I will really miss the ocean. One of the things I loved about Acadia was walking in the woods and being able to smell the ocean as well as the pine trees. There is a very distinct smell to salt water that I really love. Lakes just aren't the same. I am looking forward to seeing other parts of the country, and discovering all the differences that make each area special and unique, but I think the Atlantic Ocean will always feel like home.

Paul has a fascination for forts, and Fort Knox was pretty much on our way to NH, so we detoured just a bit to be able to check it out. One of the things we have discovered after seeing quite a few forts on the east coast, is that most of them either never saw action, or saw very little action. It always seems to take so long to build them (25 years for this one) that by the time they get built, the technology has changed so much that they are obsolete. By the time they were ready for the cannons at this fort, cannons were obsolete because ships were made of steel.

Our ticket to the Fort also included a bonus feature for Paul. We drove across the Penobscot Bridge, which has a huge tower, that looked like an observation tower to Paul. Our ticket to the fort included a ticket to the top of what actually in fact is an observation tower. That was a fun and unique experience.

We arrived in Shelburne/Gorham NH after spending a night "on the road," at a campground along the route. We also made a stop at the visitors center in NH. We have learned to make that stop as soon as we enter a new state. There is so much information we can get there about what the state has to offer. We hadn't made a reservation at a campground so we beelined for the one we wanted. Most of the campgrounds around here are not very full right now, so we are only making reservations if we want a specific campground for some reason. After setting up, we took a ride around the area to check it out, and make some plans for the next few days. Once we did that, the weather changed everything anyway!

Saturday the idea was to go hiking , check out some waterfalls and investigate anything else that looked interesting. When we got up, it was cloudy, VERY windy, and not exactly warm. An executive decision was made to "trade days". We usually do our errands and laundry on Sundays, but with the lousy weather it made more sense to do it Saturday. We were really glad we did, when we saw today's weather. Beautiful! Warm, beautiful blue skies, and just as importantly, no wind. We took off to explore and stopped for a picnic lunch along the way (we usually pack a lunch every day and eat wherever we happen to be).

It was never really in our plan to go to the top of Mt Washington. We have both been there, and for whatever reason, didn't really feel the need to do it again. Until we saw it. And by that I mean, we could see the whole thing. Usually its in the clouds.

As we drove up the mountain in the van, the driver commented that there are really only about 12 days a year that are this fabulous on the mountain. The air temperature was 49, toasty warm for the mountain (yesterday:35 degrees), visibility was 130 miles, (yesterday:1/16 mile in freezing fog) and the wind was only 30mph (yesterday: gusting to 90 mph).

The views were absolutely amazing.