Franconia Notch

Our aim today was to do some sight seeing around the area called Franconia Notch. We’d gotten a recommendation to check it out a while ago, and from the pictures, it looked pretty spectacular.

We treated ourselves this morning to cinnamon rolls baked in our propane oven! Man, you guys. That right there is worth the price of a trailer. I highly recommend you all have cinnamon rolls baked over a propane oven. Not because they taste any better, just because it’s super cool when you’re “camping”.

I took lots of pictures today so bear with me.

We stopped at a few places along the highway on our drive there because it seems you can’t go too far before you run into a scenic waterfall or something. The weather has looked iffy all day, but so far, no rain.

We stopped for lunch at a place called Cannon. There was an aerial tram that would take you up the side of the mountain to see something called “Old Man Mountain”. I took one look and thought: “Uh uh. No thank you.” The pictures were enough for me. Then we got fudge at the visitor center and Richard said, “I really need a little knife.” When he opened the box and immediately found a little plastic knife inside, he was highly amused.

Franconia Notch has this “Flume” trail where you get to hike a 2 mile or so loop right along this running water fall that has cut its way through the gorge. There’s a nice explanation of exactly what this is on the picture I took of the sign.

<—— There. I got you covered.

The boardwalk is actually a walkway made out of wood that comes right out of the side of the rock face. I have to admit, even though we knew it was safe, it really looked precarious. Richard did not like this part of the hike at all. In the visitor center it says that every single year, crews have to come out here and remove the whole darn thing or it will get destroyed by all the snow. Then come Spring, they put it all up again. At least that means it gets inspected every year right? Still, if any part of this baby went down, you’d be a goner. The ice cold water rushes at break neck speeds along solid granite. I was amazed how many parents let their kids dip their toes in the water along the edges.

Once we were past the suspended boardwalk part, it was just a lovely walk through nature down to a gift shop. We had gift shop coffee and a soft pretzel.

We are now thinking about what route we want to take to get through New York. The nicest route takes us frighteningly close to Champlain, New York. The one place in the world I do not want to go to is Champlain, New York, because that is where we apparently already crossed the border. I do not want to cross the border again.

I am right now able to get internet service in a little cafe in North Woodstock, NH. Richard is enjoying a delicious blueberry, banana, spinach smoothie. I’m going to post today’s events even though we’re not done with today. We hitch up and head out in the morning and continue West. We’ll need to do a “dump” of our grey water tank in the morning as it is already reading Full. For three nights, it looks like the limiting factors for us will be grey water, and electric if we don’t have hookups. We do here so we can charge and run things with reckless abandon. If we were counting on the solar panels, it seems we will need a sunnier spot.

Gonna get some dinner in town and head back to Dory. Verdict on the 2″ foam: worth it!