I wonder did anybody get the reference in the title to A
Knight’s Tale. Anybody? Anybody?
Ah well, it’s one of our favorite quotes from that movie, and it
definitely applies today. But before I
get to that, let me give you a little set up first.
We decided to drive up to northern New Hampshire today to
see EE Cummings’s house, but the house proved to be just as elusive as the
poet. Okay, I’m not sure if EE Cummings
was all that elusive, but his house sure was.
We even stopped at the Madison Town Hall to ask for directions, but even
though the ladies there were extremely nice, they weren’t really sure where the
house was either. But they did give us
another place to go visit…the Madison Boulder.
The Madison Boulder is a glacial erratic, which means it’s a
huge rock left behind when a glacier moved across the area 25,000 years
ago. It’s one of the largest glacial
erratics in the world at 87 feet long, 23 feet wide, and 37 feet high. To say it was impressive is an
understatement. How we have managed to
luck into these cool things, I don’t know, but I’m sure glad we did.
After the Boulder, we kept going north to find Arethusa
Falls. The highway to get there was
incredible. It was an explosion of color
on both sides. We had seen trees
decorated in fall colors here and there, but this was the first time we had
seen it in such large quantity. We took
a wrong turn trying to get to the park, but we were fortunate enough to run
into a very nice couple from Massachusetts that directed us back to the correct
road.
We found the trail to Arethusa Falls. A 1.5 mile hike straight up a mountain? No problem!
An hour before it gets dark? No
problem! Huffing and puffing our out-of-shape
bodies over a boulder field in continuously thinning air? No problem!
Ten steps into the trail…problem.
Whoever thought this trail up was a masochist. It was grueling. It pushed our endurance. It nearly killed one of us. Boulders, trees roots, one to two-foot
step-ups, and elevation were constant throughout the entire trail. I just knew that after making it through this
test, after suffering up this stupid mountain, I was going to get attacked and
killed by a moose at the end. Because
that would have topped off this hike perfectly.
But we survived. It
took us over an hour and half to get to the falls, but we survived. I had one of my hands gnawed off by a Monty
Python rabbit in the woods, but we survived.
I lost about 60 pounds in sweat and internal organs, but we survived. We survived, and it was worth it. The falls were a little light due to the lack
of rain in recent weeks, but it was still beautiful. Of course, we could have just thought that
because of what we endured to get there.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay long as it was already getting dark by
the time we arrived.
The hike back was torrid.
It was as if we were being stalked by a mountain lion or something. We blazed down the trail, trying to beat the
impending darkness, twisting ankles on unseen rocks and tripping over darkened
stumps. The gloom seemed even thicker
under the canopy of trees without even the light of the rising moon to light
our way. When we finally arrived back at
the car, it was pitch black. I looked
back at the trail and wondered how we ever made it down. But we managed it in the ever-growing
darkness in just about 50 minutes.
Sore, tired, and sweaty, we started the long drive back to
the hotel. My wife said that it would
be too late to eat when we got back to Portsmouth and we should just find a
hole-in-the-wall place to eat in North Conway.
And that is exactly what we did.
We stopped to eat at Delaney’s Hole in the Wall restaurant and
tavern. (I kid you not, that was the
name of it.) While we watched the Red
Sox finish off the Tigers amid a raucous crowd of Red Sox fans (my kind of
people), my wife continued her sampling of every type of hamburger
imaginable, while I opted for a Stromboli.
And it was to die for! (Which
considering the hike we had just done wasn’t too far off the mark.) Another great recommendation if you come up
this way.
