Date: 2003-09-05
From: Lincoln, NH

To: ?
Miles today: 0.0

Today, we did the coolest thing! We did Mount Washington! Once again, though, I am getting ahead of myself!The first thing on the agenda this morning was blueberry pancakes! We walked over to an atrocious looking tourist place complete with steer heads and armadillo skins on the wall. We entered the restaurant through a fake covered wagon, and sat down to some of the best pancakes I have ever had! It turns out that this is a family owned place, and the waitress and I had a blast talking about working with our fathers! We agreed that we should start a club for daugters and fathers that worked together! :)After eating our fill, we headed for Mount Washington via a few town chores. Of course, we ran into other hikers and did some more trail magic. I told them that my goal was to hike and do trail magic in enough places that when I got to the Gathering, I would know everbody!! :)Finally, we were headed towards Mount Washington! Now understand, we are supposed to be hiking up Mt. Washington! However, we are reckless blue-blazing thru hikers, so we are going to take the cog railroad up to the top! This is totally cheating, but we don't care! :) Imagine a small railroad car, looking just like the trolleys in San Fransisco, being pushed by an old fashioned steam locomotive! How cool is that?! The train putt-putts up almost 4000 feet in a trip that takes an hour and ten minutes going up and thirty minutes coming down. At one point we go up a grade of 37%. To put that in perspective, Amtrak considers a grade of 2% extreme.....we went up a 37% grade! The trip was fun, but Bumpkin and I intended to make it more fun!Traditionally, thru hikers "moon" the train and its passengers as it goes by. As we sat on the train discussing this tradition, Bumpkin and I looked at each other and were struck by the same genius idea at the same time! Wouldn't it be great if, for the first time in history, the trains passengers mooned the hikers?!?! Then....and this is where the genius that is I and Bumpkin comes in....we convinced everyone on the train to moon the hikers with us!! These nice, civilized, respectable people did not know what hit them! All in all, about a third of them commited to join us in our mission, and the brake man thought the idea was great. :)By the time we got up to the AT, however, visibility was about ten feet. We were smack dab in the middle of the clouds. Unfortunately, or fortunately, as the case may be, we did not see any mooning hikers, so everyone kept their clothing and their dignity intact. There was an instance where Bumpkin thought she saw a hiker and dashed for the window with her hands unbuttoning her pants, but her husband restrained her, much to the amusement of the other pasengers.When we got to the top of the mountain, the weather report said that it was 40 degrees with winds gusting at 15 mph. This is very mild for Washington, and, I am telling you, this was incorrect! It was freezing!! We had made plans to be in front of the weather camera, so that all of our friends and family at home could see us. Bumpkin and Jerry unzipped their jackets so that they could proudly display their Huthmaker Violin Shop tee shirts, and Bumpkin waved her Rotary banner wildly. As the clouds swirled around us, we jumped around, trying to keep warm, and called my parents to see if they could see us. After a few minutes of shouting at each other over the wind, our images appeared on computers across the globe, and we went inside to warm up.Minutes later, we made a mad dash for the summit for pictures, and then boarded the train for the trip down. I have to say, all in all, it was one of my most favorite blue-blazing experiences! Instead of trail blazing, we were rail blazing! :)Now, we are on our way to Concord to met with the Toyota folks to get this window fixed. Tomorrow night, we are going to try to catch a Don White show in Mass., Sunday we are going whale watching, and then, who knows what Monday holds! What an adventure!Love, Anna aka Mud Butt