From the White Mountains of New Hampshire

I've been mostly away from lj since about mid-July because of the Odyssey alumni writing workshop, The Never-ending Odyssey (TNEO), and then because of a lovely vacation I've been on while making my slow way to Montreal for Worldcon.I've kept a paper journal of some of the things Stephan and I have seen and done in Acadia National Park in Maine and the White Mountains of New Hampshire, but thought I'd drop by here for a brief account of our doings today.My dream had been to climb Mount Washington, but I've got knee issues that mean I can do about 1-3 miles tops per day on rugged trails, with walking poles, and sometimes even that leaves me limping. So the goal for this trip was to see as much of the lovely scenery as possible with a minimum of walking.The weather was splendid today. We had a wonderfully scenic drive up the 8-mile Mt. Washington auto road. I had taken that road as a child of about 12 or 13 and remember it making a big impression. We stopped on the way up and took a little walk through the krumholz, the area of stunted trees above the regular treeline. Beautiful! Among the rocks grew hardly little flowers and creeping plants.The summit was a little chilly and in some intermittent clouds and fog, but as we walked around, we got great views in just about every direction. I took lots of pictures. Sometimes I would see a great view, for instance, the top of the weather observatory, and by the time I had my camera out and ready, it was completely engulfed in mist. I couldn't resist walking a bit of a trail, but as it was clambering over rocks, we had to keep it short. We visited the museum, a highlight of which was watching a short video with a hilarious depiction of what high winds can do. It was called "Breakfast of Champions," and showed a guy being served coffee and cereal on a table outside of the observatory. Not only did the coffee blow out of the cup, the cup blew away. The cereal blew out of the bowl, the cereal box blew out of his hand, and the milk poured from a jug never even reached the bowl but blew horizontally over it. The bowl blew away. Even the table finally blew away. I'm relatively certain this should be findable to watch somewhere on the internet, and if I find it, I'll post a link.We decided to take the Wildcat Mountain gondola up the mountain across the road from Mt. Washington, which carries skiers in winter. We had a fabulous view and a great look at mountains on both sides, including, of course, Mt. Washington. Seeing where we had been and having a great view of the famous Tuckerman Ravine, where the shortest (and steepest) trail leads up the mountain, was fabulous. We walked a few steps on the Appalachian Trail.Next, we took a short trail near Conway to a waterfall known as Diana's Baths. The river spills down a series of pools suitable for wading and swimming. The water was icy-cold and felt fabulous. I sat for a good half-hour with my legs in the water up over my knees, which I figured would be similar to icing them. Stephan climbed up to the higher levels, but at that point my knees didn't want to do any more downhill (much worse for me than uphill), so I stayed put.I want to come back again for some hiking when my knees are up to it. I found out today that you can hike up and take the cogwheel railway back down Mt. Washington, which sounds pretty appealing. But there are lots of other great peaks to explore as well.I'll write more about Acadia National Park at another time, but for now I'll just say that it was even better than I remembered, and it made such a huge impression on me as a kid that I've been pining to go back ever since. Stephan loved it too, so I'm sure we'll manage to make it back there again at some point.Now, we're off to dinner.