My previous post was all about the mountain.  Mount Washington, to be precise.  However, our five-day trip did not begin there, nor did it end there!  No, no, I must truly start at the beginning.

It all started when my sister had the grand idea of going away two weeks before going away for our summer holidays.  A vacation before the vacation, so to speak… This meant extra work for hubs (though we assured him he would have access to WiFi and would be able to do whatever work needed to be done…)!  You see, sister works shifts so taking two days off means she has a whole week off!  And her hubs works in a school so he’s off all summer.  Not too much of a challenge for them to get away.  Time-wise.

So, before Mick could say “Boo!”, I booked the Eastern Slope Campsite in Conway, New Hampshire, right on the Saco River.  He did what he had to do and we packed up the camper and off we went!

Just so you know… gas is a lot cheaper in the States than it is in Quebec.  We put $30-$40 of gas into the tank to make it to the border and across for a first full fill-up.  Our truck is a big F-150. Our trailer is 27 feet long and weighs a good 7,000 lbs when full of stuff (as it was).  Driving towards Conway means driving through the White Mountains.  Driving through the mountains means you get a lot less mileage per litre than you would driving, say, on a straight highway not lugging a trailer….

Truck & trailer

We drive through customs (I won’t mention that we may or may not have taken the wrong road and took an un-scheduled detour) and off we went, our eyes open for a gas station.  When you have as much real estate to pull as we do, you have to be picky about where you stop.  When you think you’re going to have to putz around trying to get into an itty-bitty gas station, you pass until the next one.  Mistake.  And then you watch your dashboard all lit up letting you know you only have about 25km left in your tank.  You don’t quite panic, but you just may start to fret.  They you see you have only about 11 km left of gas in the tank.  You grab the GPS to see where the next available gas station is (because at this point, you’ll take itty-bitty!) and by the time it finds it, you have 5 km left in your tank at the station is 3 km away.  Any way you count it, it does not add up.

Now what?

Sputter, sputter… oh shit! We are officially at ZERO!  The gods were on our side as just to the right, down a hill a bit was a rest area.  Yessiree!  We coasted down the hill and parked (beautifully, I might add) on the side.  Then we called CAA (same thing as AAA) and ordered ourselves a cherry bomb of gas!  We had a good 45-minute wait in the lovely Lyndon rest area and it just happened to be lunch time and I just happened to have a chopped egg mixture in the trailer so I made lunch, Aidan and Mick played backgammon, Iain snoozed and I walked around taking pictures and reading.

Lyndon Rest Area

Big backgammon game

AAA arrived with the gas, we got back into the truck and hightailed it to that gas station, just 3 MILES away… not the same as 3 KILOMETRES!  Filled up the tank (at a sort of itty-bitty) and made our way to the campground!

Set up camp and joined my sister and her family for some quality family time!  We did our usual pasta night on the first night and the next day was a beach day and outlet shopping day (had to get some hiking boots as mine were dead!)

The grounds

Our site

Banks of the Saco River

The kids had a blast jumping off the “Tarzan rope” strategically hung across the river from us.  I had a great vantage point with a good zoom lens to catch their antics!  First it was the kids only.  They were excited/scared to try it!

Waiting for their turn

After lunch, the dads joined in.  It was hilarious to watch… the various techniques and aerial positions had me in stitches.  I truly could have posted some of the wackiest but I want my family to continue to love me…

Their hands a little raw, a few scrapes later and it was time to go prepare supper.  While packing up, we watched a mother duck and her ducklings paddle away from us, ever faster!  I have no clue what kind these are!

Mama and her babies

As we were walking back to our site, I turned back to take a picture of the darkening skies…. they were about to burst!  And they did, just as we got back to the lean-to! But what comes after rain?  Yes!  A rainbow!

Getting dark

Getting Serious

Downpour

After the rains…

That evening was wing night!  Mick as developed a new recipe and quite frankly, it is delicious…

While dinner was being cooked, my sister and I howled with laughter when we witnessed this:

… as it reminded us of a time waaaaaaay back when we were immature younger adults and had been kicked out of our camping site for being too noisy the night before.  They didn’t kick us out of the campground so we just picked up the tents and walked them over to another section!  Memories….

The next day’s forecast (Wednesday) was for sun and warmth.  Perfect day to climb Mount Washington!

Still smilin’

Come Thursday, we were a little slow getting ourselves organised.  I was surprised that I felt no real repercussions for the previous day’s exertions.  We had a late breakfast and then hubs and sis went to sign us up for an inner tube ride down the Saco River.  We were too late for that so we signed up for a seven-mile kayak trip down the Saco.  (Like we hadn’t done enough exercise the day before!)  We had 15 minutes to get ourselves into our bathing suits, pack a few beers and go!

There is no way in hell I was bringing my camera onto a kayak (especially since I have been in one only – never!) and decided to not even bring my phone just in case so I’ve no pictures of our adventure!  I will await copies of my brother-in-law’s as he was brave enough….

You’ll just have to wait for the last part of our Conway Get-Away!