boat

Price and I went to Franconia Notch State Park this past Friday-Sunday. It was our second visit to the area for camping. Price is starting to get to know the area well because he is working on hiking all of the 4,000+ foot mountains.  He has done some really hard ones so he thought our little hike on Lonesome Lake trail was easy. I wanted to hurt the earty crunchy man that was sprinting up it. The hike was well worth it in the end because we ended up at this fantastic lake. We went a tiny bit off trail to get to the water and sat on some rocks to have our picnic lunch of pepperoni, cheese, crackers, and wine. Needless to say splitting a bottle of Chardonnay leads me to giggle (especially when price slipped in the mud- ‘It’s the wine laughing, not me!’) and have a better outlook when it comes to getting back to camp.

Once back at Lafayette Campgroundwe regrouped for dinner. After a quick trip a grocery store in Lincoln, NH we got our dinner of hamburgers ready. It is so much fun to cook over the campfire. I stopped off in the camp store to get a smores stick and found our that the temps would get down in the 40’s that night. What the hell?!!? It’s August!! Thankfully I always keep a blanket in my car so we had the extra one that I used to stay warm with when were were relaxing by the firs after dinner. Yes, I was sitting in front of the fire. Yes, I was still cold. Repeat: temps quickly dropping to the mid 40’s.

We survived the night. I thought I would have frozen to death but my 2 shirts, fleece, pants, and socks kept me warm enough. Another quick drive down to the grocery store (forgot a spatula) and a cafe for some coffees and we are ready for the day! What better way to start the day than cooking bacon over the fire?!?!? I wish I could cook bacon over a fire all the time. 1) so much fun 2) such a good smokey flavor.

After breakfast we headed up to Echo Lake for some Kayaking. I had not been kayaking since camp (ah I miss camp) but that does not make me forget how to kayak! Our kayak was possessed!!! We paddled on the right, assuming like a normal person that it would turn left, but it went right. We paddled on the left, and it went right, duh! We paddled evenly and it went right. So after some lovely circles in the middle of the Lake we decided that the hour was enough and went back to sit on the beach and watch others have better luck than us.

Back at the camp site we got to relax, read, and nap. I finished Spook by Mary Roach over the weekend. (I’ve read Stiff that I passed on to Price’s dad so I will read Bonk next). Taking an 2+ hour long nap always makes for a good day.

After we finally got up from our naps we did our last dinner over the camp fire, had some roasted marshmallows and watched the fire change to blue and green from this HIGHLY toxic powder I bought at the camp store. Really cool effect but your pretty much dead if you ingest it. Our plan to get up early to swim at Echo Lake was squashed when we realized how cold it was AGAIN that morning. So we drove around the area to see Indian Head and check out Harman’s Cheese, where we got Emily maple cotton candy.

All in all a great weekend. We had a great hike, fun picnic, doomed kayak, lots of good naps, great food, and lots of fun together. On the negative side…my car smells horrible since it is a lovely combo of dirty clothes, dirty shoes, dirty cooking utensils, garbage…. well, you get the idea. Febreeze is my friend.