Day 7 - Don't Tell Me What My Favorite Pizza Shop Is.

Today I woke up surrounded by my loving family. I mean, not literally surrounded by them, because that would be weird and scary, but - you know - they were here.

Which was also weird and scary after 6 days of being a childless bachelor. And by weird and scary, I naturally mean, "delightful".

We spend this lovely Sunday morning working hard, because that's why I'm here.

Me, working really, really hard.

After all that work, Tori and I decided that we would take the Waterville Shuttle for a tour of the town. As we made our way to the bus stop, Kerri was hard at work taking pictures from the balcony.

She's taking pictures of the sky so she can write a letter of complaint to the town. Too blue.

Actually, she was taking pictures of Alex, on his never ending quest to become a pink smear on a road somewhere.

Tori and I waited for the shuttle, which tootles all over town like a toy trolley from a cartoon.

We had to wait for almost 3 minutes! I'll be writing my own letter of complaint.

 It's really a cool service provided by the town. As it was free, Tori had a very hard time convincing me not to spend the entire day, endlessly circling the town.

This is the trolley. Not the entire trolley, obviously, but the business end of it.

We were happy to be speeding about the town at mind-bending speeds approaching 12 miles per hour.

 The driver was a great guy and since we were the only riders, he made time to stop and point out lots on interesting things around town. He even pointed me toward some great biking trails.

As all good things do, our ride came to an end. Then, even more sadly, my visit with my family came to an end. It was hard to say goodbye, primarily because I found out that Alex had hidden my pillows.

I decided to postpone The Great Pillow Hunt for later and take advantage of the biking while the weather was delightful.

I made my way along a beautiful gravel path where octogenarians whizzed along at speeds that would have shamed the Waterville Trolley.

I was trying to get to a place called Greely Pond, but found that because of some recent flooding, it was no longer accessible by bike. A gentleman I met on the path directed me to a path that he said, "Climbs up pretty steeply for about a mile and  half, then drops precipitously."

I don't know if you could resist a description like that, but I couldn't.

I sweated and swore my way upward, careful not to block the path of the octogenarians who kept passing me in great, swirling swarms.

As I climbed, I kept myself motivated by thinking about how much fun the ride down would be. "This will be so much fun!" I lied to myself. "This will be totally worth it."

I finally reached the summit of the road at the point where, as foretold, the road dropped precipitously.

Down ahead of me.

Down behind me.

Not wishing to drop dead in the middle of the woods, I opted to head back down the hill, toward town where there was the promise of ice cream and horizontal roads to bike on.

I zipped down the hill, zigging and zagging through the endless parade of people hiking up the hill. The ride down; the one I had been so eagerly anticipating, lasted a good 5 or 6 seconds and was, I'm sad to say, less thrilling than I had anticipated.

Once back in town, I settled in for some grueling work by the pond. this time, I selected a seat in the town square, so I could have a good view of the beach and all the plastic chairs which ere there yesterday.

The work is brutal, but I feel obligated to do my best at all times.

Please note the complete lack of chairs of any kind on the beach. I'm beginning to suspect some sort of demonic possession.

While taking that picture of the beach, I noticed something on the raft.

Can you see it?

Now can you see it?

It appears to be some sort of a message in a bottle. I quickly reasoned that someone must be in grave peril somewhere and cast that bottle into the river upstream in a desperate attempt to get help. It bobbed downstream and somehow popped out of the water to land on this raft.

I can't think of any other plausible explanation.

And, to whoever it is that is in desperate need of help, I'm sorry, but I didn't have my bathing suit. Maybe I'll try to get out there tomorrow.

If it's warm.

Otherwise hang in there, buddy and remember: Stay Put and Stay Dry.

On my ride home, I was struck by just how many gazebos there are in Waterville Valley. I suspect that the original town may have been simply a loose gathering of gazebos.

I have decided that working in each of them is a moral imperative while I am in residence.

This one overlooks the town common.

I have also noticed that buildings in town are quite transient, as if eager to go walking along paths with old people.

This gazebo will be tricky. It's surrounded by golf course and, naturally, golfers, who tend to hit balls around at very high speed. I'll wear my bike helmet while working there.

This one is tucked away behind the golf course.

And I like the dedication.

This one is attached to someone's house and will likely be even more challenging to get into than the one on the golf course.

This one is right outside the ski school and is very close to my residence.

This is as close as I get to a gazebo where I am staying. Working in there was totally unacceptable.

 Tired and hungry from my arduous bike ride, I grabbed a snack (leftover from the reception last night) and some wine for an afternoon snack.

While in town, I picked up something to help me handle those tricky boxes of wine.

1.

2.

3. Presto! Instant snack.

I wanted to head over to the school's gazebo with my snack so I could eat, drink, and draw in the warm afternoon sun. I realized that sauntering across a schoolyard carrying a box of wine with a straw sticking out the top might prove problematic.

In the words of the late great musician, Louis Jordan: "It looked so common. And I know I ain't common. I got class I ain't even used yet."

So I transferred my wine to a coffee mug and settled in to enjoy last rays of sun on the warm afternoon.

Because I epitomize "classy".

 No sooner had I settled in when I spied an even better place to hang out.

The scorekeeper's chair at the tennis courts was empty!

AND IT HAD A WINE TRAY!

The view from on high.

Sadly, there was no room on the tray for a snack, wine, and my sketchbook. Two things had to go.

Soon, the snacks were gone, the wine was gone, my sketchbook was full, and it was time for dinner.

My father had generously bought 4 pizzas yesterday to feed the assembled family. The leftovers beckoned me, but the presumptuousness of the pizza place's slogan bothered me.

Don't tell me what my favorite pizza shop is.

And so, with the lingering taste of pizza on my lips, I spent another delightful evening hard at work on a top secret new project and trying to find my pillows.

Mt. Adams, The Three Stooges, and the Mystery Tuna

Hikes that start off with this kind of warning do not scare Julie and me.

Because we are, obviously, in top physical condition, as you can easily see in this completely real, totally authentic photo of us as we set off on our hike up Mount Adams.

Our daring ascent of Mt. Adams began, as so many of the better hikes, do; in the parking lot of Lowe's Superstore.

No doubt, you are familiar with Lowe's Superstore. On the off chance that you are unfamiliar with this ubiquitous shopping center, here is a picture:

Lowe's squats at the side of the road, offering a wide variety of items essential to any serious hiker.

Who would even consider setting out on a hike without first making sure that he was properly outfitted with a 3 piece, hand-made Three Stooges birdhouse collection?

Don't even get me started on the ancient collection of "snacks" for sale in the dusty, darkened recesses of the store's interior. Julie insisted on buying "a surprise treat" at the store and I spent the remainder of the hike in mortal fear of whatever might slither out of her bag each time we stopped to get a drink or a snack or to check on Moe, Larry, and Curly.

We made our way past the series of signs trying to scare us off the mountain and soon found ourselves at a very nice shelter that had obviously been built by some very advanced beavers, because, seriously, how could humans haul all this stuff out into the middle of the woods?

I suggested that we stop in for lunch and then head home, but Julie has this thing about actually reaching the summits of the mountains she hikes.

We did spend a few delightful minutes looking through the shelter's log books and reading some of the enlightened thoughts people have while wandering through the wilderness in search of inner peace and cosmic awareness. Here are some of the deepest and most profound:

I declined to add my own personal message to the book, as whatever I wrote would look profane and ignorant alongside such enlightened writings.

On the plus side, Julie found some money hidden away in a corner of the shelter.

On the minus side, it was 10 Euros. Julie graciously offered to split the treasure with me. I discovered later in the day that teenagers working at ice cream stands in Lincoln, NH are reluctant to accept Euros in lieu of US currency in exchange for ice cream.

We wandered along, dejected that neither of us had been struck by the brilliant insights that had come to others in these majestic woods. We ascended this lovely tree-lined avenue, hoping for some sort of sign that would point us toward enlightenment.

And then we were given a sign.

The Hiker-English Translation of the sign is this:

"Dear Idiot who didn't read all the other scary signs along the way,

You are about to go from a lovely, lush, green landscape like this:

To a barren, rocky, post-apocalyptic landscape like this:

And if the sun goes behind a cloud for even a second, you're going to die a very awful death.

Have fun!

Your Friends at the US Forest Service."

Naturally, as I am in top physical condition, it made it difficult for Julie to drag me up the path after her. Eventually, she bribed me with the remaining 5 Euros and I reluctantly followed her toward the summit.

The summit of Mt. Adams is what Julie refers to as a "Shy Summit" which, again, translated from Hiker to English means, "One that you never reach, no matter how long you walk."

We trudged along landscape like this:

See that big lump in the far off distance that looks like the summit?


It's not.

When we crested the next hill, we saw the real summit.

See? Waaaaay off there in the distance?

Then, when we eventually reached that far distant peak, we realized that that wasn't the summit, either.
We were, however, finally afforded a view of the actual summit way the heck over there.

After I was done crying and sobbing, we clawed our way to the real, actual summit of Mt. Adams.
The views were spectacular.

Here is a view of Mt. Washington. You can still see the patches of snow in the ravine in June.

Here is a view of another mountain that I can't identify because, let's be honest, they all look the same.

Here is a view Julie, texting from the mountaintop.

But we won't judge her too harshly for texting while hiking because we had lunch and Julie finally revealed that her surprise was a bag of Salt & Vinegar chips!

Yay!

We were a bit disappointed to find that the "Best Before" Date was May 3, 1967, but we ate them anyway. They were extra tangy. And after we ate them, we could see sounds in 5 dimensions.

At the summit, we were treated to a running monologue from "Annoying Hiking Guy" who was soliloquizing to his small, captive hiking party audience about all the other, better hiking he had done in every other state.

Annoying Hiking Guy: Oh, yeah. This is nothing compared to the 16,000 foot peaks I did in Colorado.

Person Near Him: Yeah, but don't you start those hikes at, like, 14,000 feet?

Annoying Hiking Guy: Well, ummm, that one, yeah. But when I was in Nepal...

We ate our chips and finally decided to head down the mountain toward this pond so we could drown ourselves and thus, be free from Annoying Hiking Guy.

The descent was treacherous and slow and upon arriving at the pond, several months later, we discovered that it wasn't as big as it had appeared.

With the faint echoes of Annoying Hiking Guy following us on the wind, Julie still attempted to drown herself, but only succeeded in bumping her head a little.

We continued down the 90 degree slope and were intrigued by the views. They were official, state-sanctioned views, so we decided to check them out.

On a small side trip, we also discovered a rustic cabin built by even more advanced beavers than the shelter we had seen before.

Since nobody was there, we went in, looking for porridge or a chair or a bed that was just right.

There was no porridge, but some kind, slightly misguided soul had left this on the counter.

As tempting as that dented, bulging can of tuna was, we opted to leave it for a less fortunate, more suicidal hiker. One who, perhaps, had a can opener with him.

Maybe somebody would feed the tuna to Annoying Hiking Guy just to watch him die.

We rummaged through the cabin, looking for more Euros, but finding none, we left the cabin and the tuna.

We might have gotten lost and had to resort to eating that tuna were it not for the helpful signs pointing the way to the path.

A few million hours later, we emerged from the wilderness, back to the parking lot of Lowe's Superstore, where, hikers can park, as long as they pay at the office.

Just FYI, they do not accept Euros.