Finally, Camping Season!

May 20, 2019 - May 26, 2019

Monday (5) - Hills with Ro on the Monday after Dirty Girl, considering I didn't go all out on the race this wasn't going to be too difficult, but I was feeling those climbs for sure when we did our hills.  Despite taking a bit of a break while Ro was in Colorado I still had the benefit of the hills for the race on Sunday, plus the booty core work I did all winter. 

Two favorites
I found the ABC Coal Porter at Yankee Spirits in Attelboro!  I thought I could only get that in Maine.
The Deschtes I can find in Ohio, if I'm lucky.

Mowed the lawn while Dave and Jax were off adventuring. 

Tuesday (8 + 1) - Met up with Charlotte to ride Bradford and Woody Hill.  Barney was making a horrible noise, but it went away eventually.  I have to seriously bleed the breaks and do some general clean up and greasing.  Clearly there was something still stuck from my mud bogging a few weeks ago.  Charlotte is a much better mountain biker than I am.  It's nice to get pushed a little.  We did mostly the perimeter loop of Woody Hill.  I'm still not 50% confident of going into the spaghetti bowl and recognizing where I come out.  Close but not quite there.  Plus I left my handy Garmin, with its maps, on Ruby, so there was that crutch missing from my tool kit. 

Charlotte is braver than I.
This was steeper than it looks.

We got a little turned around for the trespassing at the gravel pit section, but then I found the pile of junk I was looking for and we were back on track!

Jax was home alone, Dave was out biking with the guys.  I quick fed Jax, showered, hobbled around, and then leashed him up for an in town walk.  It was 7:30, way to late to go to the woods.  Surprisingly Jax was totally into this walk.  We spent most of it in the park and there were things to smell and pee on and he was mostly oblivious to everyone around him.

Mostly.

When we got home, I was digging in my pocket for the house key when the leash snapped, I jerked my head up as my right arm nearly jerked out of its socked.  The Orange Menace was on the porch and sprinted down the hill to the back yard.  Which, if we had a normal back yard and Jax had his communicator on I would have dropped the leash.  Instead, dragging me along and my legs moving way faster than they wanted to every step jarring my hips and knees we got to the bottom of the hill to our back yard as the cat bounded on to the kitty corner neighbors garage roof.  And the behind us neighbor was out with his dogs and they were staring up at the Orange Menace on the roof of the garage wondering how to get up there. 

You can sort of see Jax's barking buddies in the driveway of their back yard.
The other neighbor's garage to the right.
And the top of the wall that marks the end of our property line.
My fear is he would try and leap off that wall or leap on the garage roof.

The neighbors garage roof eave is level with our back yard, this means there is a 15 foot drop from the end of their yard to the start of their yard.  It's a stone wall, not a nice sloping drop.

The behind us neighbors dogs noticed Jax, Jax noticed them, and they all looked for the Orange Menace. 

It was a very exciting evening.

Wednesday (4) - Long walk to the cafe to get lunch then a hike in Arcadia with Dave and Jax.  The rest of the night was spent pouring over the camping list checking it twice and packing up Spud for our first camping trip of the year.  It was a long horrible rainy winter here in Southern New England, felt like it was 10 months long. 

Ok, lets roll!

Thursday (1) - Uneventful drive to Vermont.  It was supposed to rain and it did, a bit here and there on the drive up and once we got Spud leveled and unpacked (in the dark) it sprinkled and then the skies opened up.  Ah the pure joy of camping in a camper.  OK for the purists in the audience, yes, I know it's not real camping, it's glamping.   Feh. 

Some weird old man and his airstream

Friday (5) - The rain was gone by the a.m. and we set up the outside stuff  after Dave made a breakfast of pancakes and eggs!  His brother gifted him 18 eggs from his chickens.  I say gifted because the wife of the brother charged her (and my) MIL for eggs once.  Who does that?  It must be some weird Transylvania thing? So now it is a HUGE deal if the eldest Smith boy gives anyone eggs.  I asked Dave if he kissed his brother's ring.  HA HA.

The eggs were awesome as farm fresh eggs are.

Breakfast!

Dave wanted to check out Green Woodlands in Dorchester NH, he was going to hike as it wasn't open for mountain biking until June 1st and the property owners seemed pretty serious about that.  It is a family foundation, 35 square miles of land for preservation, it is really fascinating reading what little is published about the property. 

Machine build mountain bike trails at Green Woodlands

I have never seen machine build mountain bike trails.  WOW!  I also never saw moose tracks.  Double WOW! I also never saw a white woodchuck (yep, that is what we are sticking with).  Triple WOW!

White Woodchuck

The morning was just so awesome.  The whole vibe in the woods, we hiked a 4 mile loop, was really cool and relaxed and welcoming.  I get the heebie jeebies in some of the 'reclaimed' places around here - Woody Hill and Big River are top of mind where I just get a weird vibe in parts of the woods.  

Stream through Green Woodlands

Saturday (4 + 7) - Dave's buddy Bill visited for the day and they rode the Ascutney Mountain trails.  The pending rain for Saturday night and Bill being stuck with his tent as his camper van (Westfalia) had a cracked windshield wussed out on staying.  I can't say as I blame him.  Years of camping in the rain and accidentally brushing up against the side of the tent or waking up with the foot of the sleeping back soaking up water, yeah... I'll pass on that fun at this point in my life.  

Ahhhhh....

That left Jax and I to entertain ourselves for most of the day.  While I had the truck to drive, I really didn't feel like leaving the campsite.  We took some short hikes and I set up the hammock and we napped.   Neither one of us are in camping shape, Jax was grouchy when he went to bed on Friday night after being up most of the day on Thursday AND Friday - dogs, they sleep like 20 hours a day.  A 'rest' day would be good for both of us.

He is a handsome regal beast

When they got back I took Barney out to Swoops and Loops across the street from where we were camping.  Bill said there was a little loop in the middle that he thought was called Newbie, and that might be a bit insulting.  I said, I'll take a trail called Newbie I'm still a very timid rider.    I managed to get lost on a closed loop course, new on for me.  I did Newbie three times, Loops three times, and Swoops once.  I got misdirected on Loops, which is a circle.  I'm really entertaining.

Barney

Sunday (5) - Quick hike on some of the Mt. Ascutney trails and then a longer hike at Boston Top in Lebanon NH.  Dave wanted to check out the mountain bike trails and there was a somewhat easy to follow loop I found I could take Jax for a hike on.  

Jax standing on Granite at the start of Spiney

Oh the Saturday night rain never really materialized for us, but it certainly did North of us and Boston Top was soaked and slippery - or greasy.  

A boy and his dog

My and Jax's path crossed Dave's once on the trails  Another very huge park of primarily mountain bike and hiking trails.  The trails were labeled on both the trail heads as well as Strava (once I finally started that I could navigate a bit better.  The trails were not as nice as Green Woodlands, they were more like what we have around here, lots of granite ledge with roots woven over them on the interior trails Jax and I hiked.  They were greasy from all the rain and the fact the snow has been gone less than a month.  The outer trails seemed more muddy than greasy (based on how caked in mud Dave's bike was).  

One of the many 'spines' along the Spiney Trail at Boston Top

SO nice to be back to camping, makes the horrible rainy miserable winter of '18-'19 seem so far away although it still seems like it was a  year long, it now seems like the distant past.  Pshew.

Exhausted

Jax will get back into the swing of camping, he did remember S'mores, whoo boy, did he!

Knitting - 

Socks are a nice take along project and I got some knitting done in the truck and at the campsite and by the campfire.  That was super relaxing.  A few more inches on the cuff of the melon socks.

We had one of the fancy fire pits!

Reading - 

"An Anonymous Girl"
by Greer Hendricks

Fascinating, engaging, and I want to know what happens next and at the same time I don't. 

Happy to be back camping again, it was nice to spend 3 and a half days in the woods and outside.  The weather was perfection.  I love camping in Vermont.

Sincerely,
Beth, a happy camper, bwahaaaaaa  I slay me.