October 8, 2008

We woke up to a sunny day and decided to hike “The Flume” in Franconia Notch. This is the main attraction here in the Notch, so we wanted to get there early before all the tour buses. There are a lot of companies touring right now. The Flume is a very narrow canyon where they have installed a walking deck to view it. There was water running down most of the flume with two covered bridges on the hike, too. It was a beautiful mile and a half hike, which was well worth the effort.

Our next stop was a ride up the tram of a ski mountain on the other side of the notch. Although the day was sunny, we were expecting it to be cold and windy at the top. Much to our surprise it was delightful. The view of Franconia Notch and Echo Lake were amazing. We could even see the Green Mountain of Vermont and peaks in Maine. The visibility was extremely good. There was a fire tower at the top to give us even a better look. Because it was so pleasant we decided to have a burger up top and enjoy the fantastic weather and views. A very satisfying moment.

We then drove the upper loop of the White Mountains. Our destination was a hike on the Mt. Willard trail to view the Crawford Notch. Notches were named because they reminded the pioneers of notching their wood in building log cabins. They are really just a narrow valley between two mountains. After asking people about the hike and reading about it in a tour book, it sounded easy enough. Oh my gosh, we should have turned around after a quarter mile or so. This hike was a killer and seemed to go on and on. It was listed as a mile and a half one way, but it was all up and the trail was totally rocky. I don’t know why good sense did not factor into our decision. We kept plugging along and eventually were rewarded with a fantastic view of Crawford Notch. The cars looked like ants below, and we had walked up this whole way. Almost as tough was the trip down because of the rocky trail. Anyway, we did it and at the bottom ran into a couple from Tomball and a fellow from Vermont. The guy from Vermont seemed so enthralled that he had met a group of Texans that he took our picture. Wish we would have been on the trail with them to distract us from our pain.

When we arrived at the resort, they were having a free happy hour, so we joined them. It’s fun to talk to other travelers. Many of them have good vacation places to share with each other. I met three older ladies who were desperately looking for a fourth for bridge. Another guy there wanted to learn how to play, so we played bridge for a couple of hours. It was a lot of fun. These gals were so quirky. Two of them were African American. One of which was a retired college professor. Her friend was almost entirely deaf, so we played with duplicate boxes. The other “old white lady” helped the new guy play. She knew every bridge rule there is. I’m sure that’s all she does. Anyway, they want me to call them tomorrow, so we can play again.