Megan’s boss very generously gave us a few free passes to visit the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln. We picked a nice fall afternoon for our visit, and brought Miss Nadine along for the tour of the outdoor sculpture garden. Click on the photo below to see more images from our time at the museum.
Our delayed but eagerly anticipated backpacking trip in the White Mountains finally came to pass. We went this weekend after postponing due to a forecast of rain and lightning the weekend before. There was a forecast of rain (from a tropical storm, no less) for the weekend we ended up going, but whatever. It always seems to rain when we are in a tent. (Click on the photo to the right to see all the images from our trip.)
Our destination was the Naumann tent site, which is just below the Mizpah Spring Hut near the summit of Mt. Pierce. It is a great location (easy to get to, near a hut, great hikes nearby, etc.) and we are glad we chose it over a few other options. The hike up went quickly, we set up our tent, took a nap, and then tried to make ourselves busy for the remainder of the day. I ended up hiking to the summit on my own but Caleb had a great time playing with some new friends at the hut. We ate dinner in style (macaroni and cheese) and did our best to sleep through the noise of the rain. We woke up early and broke camp in a bit of a drizzle (a light rain, really) and then hiked the few miles down the mountain to our car in time to make it to the Highland Center for an awesome breakfast.
As anyone would expect a breakfast conversation to go the morning after a backpacking trip in New Hampshire, we decided to head to Vermont for a night to mix the trip up a bit. We drove through the rain to Burlington, explored a little, ate some great Thai food, and checked into a comfy hotel room. The next day we drove south and explored Middlebury and Woodstock before heading home.
While I was on my trip in California, Megan and Caleb were having a grand time in Massachusetts and then in Minnesota. Megan took a bunch of photos, and I snagged a few and uploaded them here. Also included are some photos taken after my arrival in Minnesota. Unfortunately, they are all jumbled (normally I post them in chronological order) due to a file-naming flub…
Check out all of the photos here…
I made this just after my trip but forgot to post it here. Enjoy!
The title of this post is a bit incorrect as my trip involved quite a bit more than my day and a half on Mt. Shasta. But, rather than making a long and descriptive title, I chose the most memorable aspect of the trip. Here’s what is missing:
- Day 1: Early flight from Boston, through San Francisco, to Redding, CA, and a long drive west to my friend Mitch’s property along the Trinity river. There I met up with a bunch of friends from graduate school.
- Day 2: Still at Mitch’s, enjoying festivities galore…
- Day 3: Woke up early and drove east a few hours to Lassen National Park (here’s where the photos [click on the image below] pick up the story…).
- Day 4: Approach climb on Mt. Shasta.
- Day 5: Summit and descend Mt. Shasta.
- Day 6: Explore the towns around the base of the mountain, and arrive in Redding.
- Day 7: Ugh — weather delays all day. Delayed flight to San Francisco; missed connection in San Francisco and re-routed to flight through Denver (rather than direct to Minneapolis); flight to Minneapolis after seeing awesome sunset over the Rockies from the Denver airport; arrival late in Minneapolis.
- Day 8: Bluegrass festival with Megan, Caleb and my in-laws.
- Day 9: Caleb’s 4th birthday!!! Happy birthday bud!! Wedding in the evening (complete with some break-dancing by Caleb). Tornado sirens for a few minutes just as Caleb was trying to go to sleep.
- Day 10: Early flight through Milwaukee to Boston.
Whew! That was definitely the short version of this very fun and fulfilling trip. Now on to the photos (click on the image below to see them all):
The photos below are from a Daddy Day during the latter part of July. It was a drizzly afternoon but we still had a great time. We took the train to Boston, grabbed a snack at Whole Foods, walked to Megan’s office to surprise her, toured Boston Common, walked to Copley Square, explored the library, and walked back to North Station for the ride home. It was a great trip!
Click on the photo below to see all of the pictures from our afternoon:
Happy birthday buddy!
I love you!
- Your Dad
Megan, Caleb and I took a relaxing four-day trip to New Hampshire this past weekend (Thurs. to Sun.). We spent the first two nights at AMC’s Cardigan Lodge and then camped near Holderness on Saturday night. The highlight of the trip? It’s a toss-up between Caleb summiting Cardigan and Firescrew mountains, and watching him fly a space ship in Weirs Beach.
Unfortunately missing from the photos are a number of events that should be mentioned:
- Roasting hot dogs over an open flame at our campsite
- Getting a ride in a golf cart from one of the owners of the campsite
- Caleb playing in the wooden pirate ship
- Weirs Beach during the day
- Our trip to the Flume Visitor Center and the related short hike (both of our camera batteries died!) :(
- Inside Cardigan Lodge, which was a great place to stay
- The three of us crammed overnight in a two-person tent during our one night camping outing
They are best buds. Here Caleb is reading her a book while “babysitting” her for a few minutes.
We are back from a very fun trip to the White Mountains. The occasion was a multi-day AMC trip that Megan was a part of and Caleb and I were lucky enough to tag along for a portion. Megan’s group would hike to the Zealand Falls Hut and then to the Galehead Hut over two days (with a variety of routes and itineraries among the attendees. (Click on the photo to see more images and read a trip report!)
Caleb and I chose to hike over Mt. Hale and meet Megan’s group for the night at the Zealand Falls Hut, and then hike east on the A-Z Trail for a night in the backcountry before heading to our car to pick Megan up on the morning of the third day. Caleb and I had muddy, wet and rainy conditions on our first day but Caleb made it up and over Mt. Hale all on his own! If you don’t count his Moosilauke hike (since I carried him for roughly 2 of the 7.5 miles), Mt. Hale is Caleb’s first 4000-foot peak!
The night at the Zealand Falls Hut was pleasant (Caleb did not really dig waking up in the middle of the night to pitch black, nor did he like ramming his head a few minutes later on the corner of the shelf on the wall in his bunk — yet he still had a great time) and we look forward to returning soon. Caleb and I opted to hike 5.5 miles out to our car on the second day instead of camping near Mt. Field (as originally planned) because the weather was a bit of a drag on our morale, and we had a hard time spotting suitable tent sites from the trail, let alone 200+ feet away.
The rest of the trip was very relaxing and we opted not to do any more major hikes (we took a few short strolls…). We look forward to going back again very soon!
