Rocks and trees, you and me: part I

Finally, some photos from our adventures in New Hampshire. This was such a great trip for me personally, because I'd never been on vacation before. I know, you must be thinking, Never been on vacation? What kind of crazy talk is that? But it's true! I've been on some mission related trips, but that's not exactly vacation time. Then again, I suppose you could say that my trip to visit my parents in Nevada over Christmas was technically going on vacation, although I never really thought of it that way. Hmmm.... nor the visits to Ohio to visit family. I guess I've never been on a vacation that didn't involve family members before. But of course that's not the only reason it was a great trip, since Scott and I FINALLY got to spend some quality intimate time together without any other distractions or obligations. It was just us, nature, and God. Scott got a little antsy towards the end, since the towns we were nearest to pretty much shut down by 5:00pm, which left us with little to do -- and it rained for the last half of the week, keeping us indoors. But we still had a good time.

It was just beautiful, a much needed retreat from the concrete and noise of the city. New Hampshire was quiet and nothing but trees, mountains, rocks, moose, and bear. Okay, so we didn't really get to see any moose or bears, which was only slightly disappointing. I really wanted to see a real moose! But I digress... these photos will come to you in parts, because there are just too many to put in one blog post to be user-friendly. The photos are also primarily of the sight-seeing we went to, and not much else... so lots of pictures of rocks, trees, water, and fog.

On the way...



We're here! ... Er.. I didn't think to take more pictures of the place we stayed... One nice thing was that the ski resort was in-between seasons, so no ski traffic and no summer traffic. It was VERY quiet, and I liked that. The room/house we stayed in was a cute and giant bi-level kind of place that spoiled me all week. 1200 sq. ft. verses the little apartment of probably like 300 sq. ft. Full kitchen, full living room, and a huge bedroom upstairs. It was awesome.


The Saco River ran right next to the place we were staying at, so close that they had a trail marked out that would take you there from 'campus.' It was really neat, and our first romp in the nature of NH. The trail was primarily in woods, but it cleared out once we got nearer the riverbed.

Tracks that I found right before the river... I don't know what it is, but it looked relatively fresh. Looks too small to be a bear...? Hmm..

We did not set these rocks up, but apparently many other people did. There were quite a few of these stacks along the river...

My first encounter with Black Flies... I'd never heard of them before but WOW are they nasty! Good thing that we discovered this pest (though I got bit up pretty good) early on, and bought deep woods bug spray the next day.