We have been planning this trip to New Hampshire forever, but something or the other comes up and this plan gets dropped. But not the last weekend. On Thursday, we booked a hotel(one of the very few available) and set out on Friday evening for a 'colorful' weekend.
On the first day, we started our journey with a trip to Franconia Notch State Park. There are multiple attractions there, but the best of the whole lot were the roads. Nature presented a plethora of colors on both side and each side-road would take one to simply beautiful woods each of which looked like an award winning painting(not modern art, thou!).
We decided to check out The Flume Gorge as 'Gorge' was a word only familiar to us from Geography textbooks until then. It was a 2 mile hike each way along wooden steps/paths by the side of the waterfall and all the way up. It was like backtracing a waterfall in a blackbox manner ;) The view from the Sentinel Pinewood Covered bridge and other scenic views made the trail an even more memorable one.
Then off we went the route most traveled, Kancamagus Highway, and realized the reason for it. The place was at its fall peak and was amazing! Waterfalls, scenic overlooks, short hiking trails, path to the woods, bridges, you name it and you can find it here. A drive well worth the time we had to spend to get into this route from the interstate(that part is generally congested at this time of the year). The route took us eventually to Attitash, where we could choose from scenic chair rides and Alpine slides. And finally, we reached Conway where again there was a road trail that we followed but only until it started raining, that is. Moreover, days are indeed getting quite short. When it drizzles, the place looks even better with the water drops falling on multi-colored leaves, but when the rain picks up, that's the cue to get back home (well, it was for us!)
Sunday was indeed an on-road-day. We started off driving along Twin Mountains, White Mountains and Mt Washington Valley. The route has colorfully-clad tress on both sides welcoming you and beckoning you to just aimlessly drive even more, and that's exactly what we did. And yeah, we even saw a moose on the road. Had been wondering what a moose was from the time I saw the many warning signals posted about it. I still do not know what it is, but know what it looks like :)
The road finally led us to Mount Washington Auto Road which in turn led us to the summit of Mt Washington. The drive along pretty steep and narrow road without any rails by the side took some daring from the part of hubby, especially towards the summit where it was all fog and frost. A chill went down my spike when I saw ice flakes around and thoughts about impending winter was, to be honest, a little scary! As we drove down, and stopped for another scenic overview, realized that it was time to get back to NJ. Oh yeah, I felt sad!!!
More than what we saw, remains unseen and as we bid goodbye to New Hampshire, realized that this is a place we wouldn't mind coming, how-many-ever-more times! Live free or Die, says this state!!!
On the first day, we started our journey with a trip to Franconia Notch State Park. There are multiple attractions there, but the best of the whole lot were the roads. Nature presented a plethora of colors on both side and each side-road would take one to simply beautiful woods each of which looked like an award winning painting(not modern art, thou!).
Then off we went the route most traveled, Kancamagus Highway, and realized the reason for it. The place was at its fall peak and was amazing! Waterfalls, scenic overlooks, short hiking trails, path to the woods, bridges, you name it and you can find it here. A drive well worth the time we had to spend to get into this route from the interstate(that part is generally congested at this time of the year). The route took us eventually to Attitash, where we could choose from scenic chair rides and Alpine slides. And finally, we reached Conway where again there was a road trail that we followed but only until it started raining, that is. Moreover, days are indeed getting quite short. When it drizzles, the place looks even better with the water drops falling on multi-colored leaves, but when the rain picks up, that's the cue to get back home (well, it was for us!)
The road finally led us to Mount Washington Auto Road which in turn led us to the summit of Mt Washington. The drive along pretty steep and narrow road without any rails by the side took some daring from the part of hubby, especially towards the summit where it was all fog and frost. A chill went down my spike when I saw ice flakes around and thoughts about impending winter was, to be honest, a little scary! As we drove down, and stopped for another scenic overview, realized that it was time to get back to NJ. Oh yeah, I felt sad!!!
