Waterfalls, Fall Colors and Bears, Oh My!

Can’t believe it’s late September already.  Since our last post we explored the Finger Lakes area of New York, including going to a Bluegrass Festival on a sheep farm

and we even found a few more amazing waterfalls!

We then spent almost two weeks in a Army Corps of Engineers campground in the Green Mountains of Vermont.  While there we kayaked a couple times, hiked into the woods and drove up Mt. Equinox which was owned by and home of a Carthusian Monastery, a 900-year-old Roman Catholic monastic order devoted to silence and solitude.   The mountain had been donated by a Dr. Davidson, who had lived on the mountain for many years and learning the story behind the donar and the lifestyle of the Monks was quite interesting.

From the Green Mountains in Vermont, we headed northeast to an amazing spot in the White Mountains of New Hampshire along the “Kanc”, as the Kancamagus Highway is fondly known.   This is a 35 mile stretch of road from Lincoln to Conway, New Hampshire that climbs to nearly 3,000 feet in elevation and has one scenic overlook after another that just don’t disappoint.  This is the third week in September now and the trees are really starting to pop with their fall colors.

OK, so as the title to this blog states, we have talked about waterfalls (still not even close to being sick of them!) and the gorgeous fall colors but what about “bears”?

The area we camped in New Hampshire is known for Moose sightings (they even have a “Moose Tour” you can go on in search of them) and there are signs in the campgrounds warning campers to not leave any food outside because there are also black bear in these forests as well. We learned that most Moose sightings happen as night falls and near water sources, so one night at dusk, we took both puppies and walked on a short path from our campground to a river nearby mostly hoping to catch sight of moose. A short distance from our camp, our littlest puppy, Charlie began to excitedly sniff and alert across the river from where we stood. His ears were in alert position and he continued to stare in the same direction without stopping. We followed his gaze with our flashlight and actually caught two eyes looking back at us. Attached to the two eyes was about 500 pounds of black fur, yes, it was definitely a black bear! We watched it until it wandered off into the woods and thought that might be a good time for us to return to camp as we have learned bear are very fast runners and will cross rivers as well. What an amazing sight though! Unfortunately,  we have no photos of the actual bear but this picture shows where we saw him in the woods. And who knew our little Charlie would turn out to be such an asset to our wilderness lifestyle.  He is now lovingly known as “Charlie, the Bear Hunter”!

There was one more thing on our bucket list for this area and it was Mt. Washington. This is the highest peak east of the Mississippi at 6,288 feet.  There is a road you can drive to the summit and although I still struggle with a pretty extreme fear of heights, I really didn’t want to miss these views, so up we went.  I had to keep reminding myself to breath as well as having a long conversation with myself about how many people drive up everyday and they don’t fly off the road and die!  I am really proud of myself for doing this as it was really scary, but had amazing views above the clouds. (Thanks for the coping tips, Nicole!)

When we were at the top we were chatting with several hikers who made the climb to the top and of course, Ray went away wanting to hike the mountain himself.  So that’s what he did.  The next day he hiked to the top and even though he could have taken a shuttle back down to the base, he decided to hiked down.  He got to see some pretty amazing views on this climb. Gotta love his determination!

And now on to Maine.  We booked our reservation at Schoodic Woods in Acadia back in March and we have been looking forward to this area since then.  I can’t believe our life now, it’s one amazing place after another.  Livin our dream for sure!