Roaming Free In An RV

Driving the East Coast is much different from driving in the Pacific Northwest. States are close together and the towns are older and historical. Driving from New York, we passed through Vermont and continued to see the mountains along with wild turkeys walking the streets. Crossing into New Hampshire, we saw the colonial town of Littleton and moose crossing sign became the norm.

The campground where we were staying was a couple miles from part of the Appalachian Trail (AT). Many times we would be driving and see groups hiking from town to the trail or trying to hitchhike.  The part of the AT that is in NH happens to be one of the toughest parts as it hits the tallest peaks in the state. The AT trail is part of the White Mountains and it splits in two by our campground. One section can be seen from the main road and the other is off a small side street a couple miles away. We decided to hike both sections for a little bit. First, we went looking for where the trail connected from the campground and it was easy enough to find. We hiked a small portion of the trail and then went to the other trail by the main road and hiked to a shelter area for hikers. We saw one hiker going on a day hike and another hiking on toward Maine. Since there were not any viewpoints from either of those parts of the AT trail, we decided to hike the next day at Pine Mountain to see valley views.

The hike to the Pine Mountain Outlook is a less popular trail but has all the views as the busier trails. It started on a gravel road and then went off to the right to continue into the forest. Going up and up, we climbed over rocks and boulders to get to one of the many viewpoints of the valley where we saw  endless rows of mountains and a small town in the distance. The trail is owned by a church and lets hikers use the trail so we thank the United Church of Christ for allowing us and other hikers to enjoy the land.

Brad has an interesting goal for this year—to play golf every month. August, he got his fill playing multiple times in Illinois and Michigan. September was coming to an end and he hadn’t fulfilled his goal yet, so he decided to play at the Mount Washington Resort. The golf course is on the White Mountain Scenic Byway so we took a driving tour on the byway before we ended up at the resort. What did I do while Brad golfed? Worked on the blog of course!

Moose is the big talk of the town and there are moose tours on buses, ATVs, or you can drive around and find them yourself. Brad and I drove around most nights to look for the moose and we did see one female moose the first night. We barely spotted her deep in the woods and had to turn around to take a picture. Actually, we were by a farm that had cows so at first we were not sure if it was really a moose or a cow. A female moose kinda looks like a big cow. LOL! One of the more popular areas to see the moose is Thirteen Mile Woods. Though we did not see any moose in that area, we did go back twice because of the great sights. In the woods are small ponds with reflections of the changing leaves, forest on both sides of the road, and the rolling mountains.

Real, fresh maple syrup, hiking, moose, mountains, leaves changing colors . . . it was exactly what we thought New Hampshire would be like.

We are off to Maine to visit the beautiful Acadia National Park. It has been on my bucket list for a while and I cannot wait to see the park and be one of the first people in the U.S. to see the sunrise.

Till then!