Eighth in a series of posts journaling a 2009 hike on the northern section of the Cohos Trail.
Update, 2026: Old Home Day is still an annual tradition in Pittsburg.
Old Home Day in Pittsburg, New Hampshire had nothing to do with the Cohos Trail, except that it took place in a trail town. The festival’s date, right in the middle of my trip, made the celebration too tempting to pass up. This was great fun.
I’m very happy I accepted my hosts’ invitation to join them for the festivities, even though it extended my stay at the Bungalow. Their generosity of spirit has gone far beyond what I had any reason to expect.
My host got a call just a few days ago, requesting that he march with the North Country Community Band in the OHD parade. Thus I learned that he plays cornet – and not badly, either. He said he didn’t play often nowadays. But there he was in the parade, with about 20 other musicians. It takes people from 4 or 5 towns to make up this little band.
Floats abounded, many of them pulled by tractors. There was that Pittsburg High School baseball team, waving to the crowd & tossing candy to the kids. Sign on their float: “We told you we’d be back.” Loved it. There were one or two politically-themed floats; let’s just say this isn’t Obama country. Beecher Falls & Colebrook sent fire trucks to augment Pittsburg’s little contingent. They were all noisy & flashy, as fire trucks in a parade should be.
I think the entire town (population 800) came out, along with plenty of folks from neighboring towns. Pittsburg’s 4th of July festivities were rained out, I heard, and everyone seemed determined to make up for that.
After the parade, the town green was filled with tents & booths & food & games. I had a pulled-pork meal at one of the tents, and every bite was a tribute to God’s providence (so THAT’S what pigs are for!) — even the cole slaw, of which I’m not usually a fan. I had to check out the book sale table. It had maybe 50 books, most of them romances. Nope. I had better luck at the bake sale table, where I found brownies nearly as good as my son’s, and his are awesome.
I walked to the south end of Main Street to photograph the last of the town’s 3 covered bridges. I stopped to look at the cabin on Main Street in town where I plan to stay Tuesday night, and I met the proprietors. Amazing day, and a fascinating look at a town very different from my own. I’d never have had this without the Cohos Trail.
Except for my breakfast & my water bottle, I’ve packed everything to move on to Deer Mountain State Park in the morning. Tomorrow will be the last day with a full pack. I’ll leave the park on Tuesday, with a shuttle ride to the village. On Wednesday, I’ll mail home my tent & pad. Goodbye, dead weight.
Now, it’s back to the village for fireworks at Murphy Dam to cap off the day.
Seventh in a series of posts from the journal I kept on a 2009 hike on the northern part of the Cohos Trail.
My bungalow room is 85º, if the thermometer on the wall is to be believed. I’m sitting in what is more or less the living room, kitchen windows open, table fan blowing at top speed. I packed for cooler weather. We’re getting 90º days & mid-60º nights. Dew point? Hanged if I know. Sticky weather for sure, and the details are irrelevant. It looks like I have only two nights in my tent coming up. If rain holds off, conditions will be fine.
I am nursing sunburned legs after an unforgettable kayak trip. About me & kayaks: I don’t own one. I rent or borrow one on rare occasions, for use on some nice flat body of water. I avoid embarrassment only by traveling alone. Today, I put aside my reluctance to look like a fool, just because I wanted to see East Inlet from the water, not from a few glimpses off East Inlet Road.
At the East Inlet Road boat launch, my hosts and I put ourselves in Armand’s capable hands. An easygoing man with a dry wit, he knows this area well. He brought a kayak for each of us, so no one was subjected to tandem-kayaking with me. My last experience with a kayak was a few months back when my son and I rented a tandem kayak at Silver Lake state park. I never could manage to find a rhythm, and my poor son endured repeated whacks from my paddle.
I was candid with everyone about my inexperience. No matter how awkward or downright wrong my paddling style became, Armand never raised his voice except to call out something encouraging. I suppose that’s what guides are supposed to do, but since I never took a guided trip before, I was relieved not to be taken to task by a stern local with no patience for out-of-towners who can’t paddle a boat properly.
The area we were in has several names, each referring to a specific spot, and I’m not sure which ones we were in: Norton Pool, Moose Pasture, East Inlet. We went across a big pond and then into a narrow stream that wound in what to me seemed like a hopeless maze through the trees. All are beautiful, regardless of name. Eventually, this water all flows into Second Connecticut Lake.
The blazingly sunny day was moderated by a breeze on the water. We paddled out with the wind but against the current, and came home with the current but against the wind. I found paddling upwind to get back across the big pond much easier than trying to push through an opening in a breached beaver dam, against the current. I believe that maneuver took me five minutes, compared to the 10 seconds or so achieved by each of my companions.
My companions had the best free show in town, watching me maneuver clumsily but persistently around the many curves. We had the maze to ourselves. When we first hit the pond on the way back, we saw one kayak after another heading out. Armand remarked that most of the people heading onto the pond would probably not continue into the stream – certainly not as far upstream as we went. Their loss.
I was able to paddle very close to a great blue heron too intent on fishing to pay any attention to me. I saw a bald eagle, huge in comparison to the tiny bird harrying it up in the sky, probably defending her young against the eagle’s depredations. I saw the eagle’s nest. There were many Canada geese that appeared to be unaccustomed to people, unlike the geese back home that have become suburban pests. Cedar waxwings and ducks were abundant.
Kim Nilsen has written in the official Cohos Trail guidebook about the never-cut stand of black spruce we saw today. Spruce budworm damaged the stand some years ago, but the trees rebounded & this one little area has somehow never been logged. (Update: see cohostrail.org/books for the latest edition of the guidebook, expected in early 2026.)
Perhaps today didn’t count as hiking, but without my CT hike, I never would have found this place or the people who accompanied me. Much of this “hiking” trip, in fact, has been spent doing things other than hiking. I am loving almost all of it. I remain opposed to rainy hikes punctuated with insect stings.
I walked to Young’s store today, and they had a pair of padded insoles, which my torn-up feet needed. I snatched them up. When I got back to my base camp, I dropped into the swing on the lawn to catch my breath. My hostess returned from errands a few minutes later, and she spied me on the swing. “I have something for you!” she sang out. From her shopping bag, she triumphantly produced a pair of insoles. I burst out laughing. She’s a far more experienced outdoorswoman than I, and she could tell that my blisters were getting the better of me. I accepted the insoles with thanks. Her pair is now in my boots, and I am cutting up the pair I bought to make little doughnut-shaped blister pads.
A fine day, despite my stinging legs. I’m draping my damp laundry over my legs to cool the burn. Sunburn seems a fair price to pay for a day like this.
Sixth in a series of posts journaling my hike on the northern section of the Cohos Trail in 2009.
No travel scheduled today, also called a zero day by people who do more hiking than I do. I’m comfortably holed up in my little lodging on a hot summer day, listening to the Red Sox game on the radio. My remaining blisters are freshly padded & bandaged. I’ve had time today to look at the field guide on the table in here, trying to identify some of the birds I’ve seen this week. I had a wonderful nap this afternoon, though it cost me a few innings of the game. I’m sorting and re-packing all my things. A lazy day, though not a wasted one.
The remainder of my trip is firming up. Tomorrow, we have our kayak trip. Saturday is Old Home Day down in the village. I’ll catch a ride down there. Weather should be pushing 90 degrees, with no rain forecast for the weekend. The next day, I’ll hike to Deer Mountain SP, where I’ll stay for two nights. I’ll hike to the Canadian border & Fourth Connecticut Lake one of those days. Next Tuesday, there will be a press conference just over the border to celebrate the linking of the CT with the trail network of Sentiers Frontaliers (SF), a hiking group from Quebec’s Eastern Townships. I’ve arranged a ride to Pittsburg village afterward, where I have a place reserved for Tuesday night. Wednesday, if the weather’s good, I’ll get back to Sportsman’s Lodge (now closed) in one long haul, walking on Rt. 145 & Creampoke Road instead of the CT. Less favorable conditions will result in a break at Rudy’s. Either way, I’ll be finished ahead of my original schedule.
While I’m in the village, I’ll mail home my tent & sleeping pad & whatever else I don’t need to carry once I’m done camping. A light pack will help me get to Sportsman’s in one day, as will sticking to town roads (longer route but smoother path). Light load + good weather = excessive optimism.
This is all sounding manageable. Setting my own pace (slow) and schedule (flexible) has worked.
Summertime’s blue asters abound along the Cohos Trail.
Fifth in a series of posts journaling my 2009 hike on the northernmost section of the Cohos Trail.
(Update, 2026: the completed Round Pond trail was laid out on a route different from the one we flagged, which gave me a lesson in trail development: landowners can change their minds. See cohostrail.org for current information on the trail. Deer Mountain State Park is still there, an unpolished gem that should stay unpolished. Moose Alley Cones has a new location, closer to Back Lake.)
The trouble with full days is that I get tired in the evenings when it’s time to record the day’s events. Not a bad problem to have. Today was tiring, but quite satisfactory. My aching body is aching less, which is encouraging.
Today, I worked on a new segment of the Cohos Trail, which we all hope can soon be formally dedicated. I was with Lainie Castine, practically a legend among Cohos Trail builders. We started at Round Pond, where the proposed Round Pond Brook trail begins winding its way to US Rt. 3. As of now, the CT is on US 3 from River Rd. in Pittsburg to the Quebec border. Alternate routes & spurs are slowly being designed & approved, and will be developed piecemeal. The RPB trail was flagged by CT volunteers last spring, and state approval is pending, with a walk-through by a state official needed eventually.
Lainie handed me a pair of loppers & told me to follow her & look for flagging tape. Within 10 minutes, she realized that someone had come through & reflagged the trail on a slightly deviated route. Her GPS was only slightly helpful, but our compasses sure came in handy. I did very little lopping, but I helped get the trail’s flags back where they belonged.
A problem that became obvious — far more obvious on the Camp Otter Trail, where we worked in the afternoon – is that the flagging earlier in the year was done in the spring, before summer grasses grew several feet high. Some trail routes along snowmobile trails looked just lovely 4 months ago. Now, it’s midsummer. Grasses & ferns & the aptly-named hobblebush have grown several feet high. The snowmobile clubs won’t be working on the trails again until fall. The routes we checked today would pose a maintenance nightmare. Not an insoluble problem, to be sure, but a challenge.
We were on game trails when we weren’t on snowmobile trails. I saw a bobcat track for the first time. We saw plenty of moose tracks, as well as a spot in the Camp Otter area that’s obviously used by moose as a place to bed down. Bears left the most traces, though: prints, scat, more scat.
Coming out of the woods on the Round Pond Brook trail, before we got to US 3, we came upon a field full of Joe-Pye Weed and bee balm. This area is bursting with summer blossoms.
Camp Otter was an arduous couple of miles of slogging through mud & stumbling over long, tangled vegetation. This is the area where the trail association wants to put in 500′ of badly-needed bog bridging. I’m told that the materials have been acquired but are being stored down in Stark.
Rain began as we started to whack our way through the vegetation along Camp Otter trail. We were already so muddy that we didn’t care. Lainie is fine company, and she is undeterred by such minor matters as mud! Her attitude was contagious. She fed waypoints into her GPS, reflecting the improved trail route we flagged today. I became the first non-CT-board member to hike these segments. With breaks, it took us about 5 hours to walk/bushwhack/slog 4.1 miles. We felt like very wet pioneers when we were done.
We really were filthy by the time we were shuttled back to the Bungalow. Lainie insisted that I get first crack at the shower, and she was kind enough to put my muddy clothes along with hers right into her washing machine. Once I was cleaned up, I made a double batch of mac & cheese for a late lunch, and that simple little dish was perfect.
As I ate, I thought about some of the things I had planned to do on this trip. After only a couple of days with blisters, I had to admit to myself that Mt. Magalloway is out. I lost it the moment I dunked my feet in the mud on the Lake Francis trail and then didn’t dry them promptly. A steep uphill walk would be torture at this point, leaving me unfit for the other walking I need to do. There are already unexpected delights on this trip, though, in areas to which I could never have dayhiked from here.
Later, with my laundry hanging to dry, my hosts proposed a ride — “bring your camera!” We piled into their beat-up but valiant truck, and off we went.
First stop, Young’s, where everyone had things to pick up. Second stop: Moose Alley Cones, where I reveled quite messily in a double scoop of chocolate moose-tracks ice cream. Good thing I’d bought paper towels at Young’s. This ice cream stand had been on my to-do list for the trip, and I hadn’t told anyone about it, so this was an auspicious start to the road trip.
We proceeded north on US 3, the “Moose Alley” of all the tourist literature. We stopped at Second Connecticut Lake, at the boat ramp off the highway. We were the only people there. Once out of the car, I looked around in awe, overcome by profound silence. We were away from the dam at the lake’s south end, so there was no sound of rushing water. At that moment, there was no bird’s song or call, though I’m told loons are frequently seen here. No aircraft overhead, no carloads of tourists, no boats or boat motors – a place & a moment of peace, with nothing in view but the lake & the spruce trees all around.
From there, we drove north a couple of miles to Deer Mountain State Park, a campground with 20-some-odd sites. This gave me a chance to scout my quarters for next Sunday & Monday nights. Pleasant spot, lots of trees, Connecticut River the size of a brook rushing down a stretch called Moose Flowage: all good. The attendant lives on-site; we’re way beyond commuter territory. There’s no rec building or any other community structure. About a third of the sites were occupied, which confirmed my hope that a reservation & its fee would be unnecessary. I love the signs I’ve seen at all three state parks on this trip: “If office is closed, occupy any available site” – and leave the fee at the iron ranger, of course. Lots of honor-system operations up this way. As I expected, there’s no electricity at the park. In fact, we’d left the last US utility lines behind us a few miles back. The park also has no water supply aside from a single spring, piped up at a spot near the entrance.
Notes made & photos taken, I hopped back in the truck. We headed back south past Second Lake & turned east onto Magalloway Road. I noticed mile markers, and it turned out that all the back roads we were on last night had them. I suppose they’re useful, as long as you don’t expect to use a cell phone to summon help to your broken-down car at mile marker 3 on Magalloway Road. There is no cell signal there. (Update, 2026: cell service has come to portions of Pittsburg.)
These back roads, originally created by logging companies & still maintained in part by them, cut right through thick, thick woods. Spruce predominates. “Great North Woods” is no mere chamber of commerce conceit. We passed a number of small logging cuts that hardly put a dent in anything. The spruce all looked nearly black as the sun began to set.
At a fork we headed right, to Buckhorn Road. There were camps here & there, most of them looking neat & maintained despite the absence of cars in the driveways. The sky to our right was beginning to take on beautiful tints & tones in the last of the day’s light.
Another turn put us on Cedar Stream Road – the same Cedar Stream Road I’d found so boring a few days ago. We were miles farther east, though, at mile marker 19. This stretch was wilder, with fewer camps, and still no moose. We drove westward, & the full glory of the sunset was right in front of us. I could afford to enjoy it; I wasn’t the one who had to drive into the glare.
At the intersection where I had veered off to the Bog Branch bridge & the Lake Francis trail a few days ago, we turned left onto the east end of the nine-mile-long Deadwater Loop Road. This was the Wild America stretch, seen by very few flatlanders like me. This would have made a more interesting hike than Cedar Stream Road, coming from Rudy’s. I’ll remember that the next time I’m up this way.
Approaching the village, we turned onto Cedar Stream Road again, then Rt. 145 and then US 3. We drove onto giant Murphy Dam – giant for these parts, anyway. Pete told me this is an earthen dam, built in the 1930s.
Back on US 3, we passed the Pittsburg high school. I’m going to get a picture of the building on Old Home Day next weekend so I can show my son the home of the class S baseball champs. Their tournament victory made the front page of my downstate newspaper a few weeks back — a high school of 37 kids, with 14 of them on the team.
(As I write this, a small plane is passing overhead. That’s unusual here.)
The evening ride’s last leg was around Back Lake, ringed with inns and resorts. As we returned to Danforth Road after three unforgettable but mooseless hours, I said it would be funny if we drove over 40 miles & didn’t see a moose until 200 yards before the driveway. I was off by just a bit. On the way up Danforth, there was our one & only moose, waiting for us as if hired. Our tour was complete.
Fourth in series of posts journaling my 2009 hike on the northern section of the Cohos Trail.
(Update, 2026: Since this 2009 trip, the Mountain Bungalow no longer graces the Cohos Trail. See cohostrail.org for information on places to stay. On recent trips I’ve stayed at Ramblewood Campground in Pittsburg, which connects directly with the CT. Young’s Store is still going strong, but Happy Corner Café is long gone. I sure do miss their Corner Burgers.)
First Connecticut Lake and Mount Magalloway, Pittsburg NH
Sun came out 9-ish this morning, so I had a chance to spread out the tent fly and backpack to dry. In the hour before things clouded up again, I enjoyed a walk along the lake shore before I came back to pack up my gear. I blessed every one of those little plastic bags as I re-packed them into the backpack. Dry gear and a bit of sunshine did wonders for me.
I made a mental note of things to do differently if I’m ever possessed to to this again: get a lighter tent; bring fewer clothes for a midsummer hike; find useful rain gear; no more sleeping pads from Target. Pony up the big bucks for a light-but-cushy pad.
Today’s short hike brought me to the Mountain Bungalow, on the property of two Cohos Trail supporters, Lainie and Pete (update: ownership has changed hands and the Bungalow is no longer there). That’s going to be my home for a few days while I do some trail maintenance with Lainie and play tourist in Pittsburg. I’ve lived in New Hampshire for over 25 years, but northern Coos County is unfamiliar to me, and I want to see as much of it as I can while I’m here.
The walk up River Road to US Rt. 3, with a little shortcut marked with a CT sign, leads to what the map calls Happy Corner. What’s so happy about it? Check this out: Young’s store, a great little restaurant, and a covered bridge, all right there. (Oh, all right, I actually had to walk for 5 minutes to find the covered bridge. Don’t be picky.)
Young’s had the camp shoes I hoped for, lightweight & cheap. The Happy Corner Cafe next door served me a splendid lunch. Let me recommend the Corner Burger, piled with cheese, onions, mushrooms, & green peppers. Two tables over sat the family that camped at the site next to mine last night.
I headed up Danforth Road in a light drizzle, along the south slope of Prospect Mountain. (New Hampshire is littered with Prospect Mountains, I think, but this is the only one near Happy Corner.) It’s an uphill walk, but no killer. The bungalow was at the end of the road, a bit shy of the summit. Two moose, cow & calf, crossed the road ahead of me as I made my way up, but they were gone before I got my camera out. I was later told that I was lucky; moose are apparently an unusual sight on that road.
By the time I arrived at the Bungalow, the sun was out, and we had a gorgeous afternoon. My hosts gave me a friendly greeting and showed me around. I’m the only guest in the Bungalow. No running water, but there are plenty of jugs I can fill from the main house. There is electricity. There’s a radio, and I’ll check out the reception eventually. The kitchen is tiny but adequate. This all reflects a lot of work & care by my hosts.
A cache that I had mailed a week ago awaited me, providing a few days of food. Once I emptied the cache box, I started filling it with things from my pack that I’ve already decided I can live without. Must lighten pack.
I put on my new camp shoes as soon as I got here. My boots will now dry out from their dunking in the bog yesterday. My blisters, every ugly swelling one of them, get TLC by not being jammed back into damp shoes. Aside from the boots, everything has dried out from the bog & the rain.
Lainie offered me a ride on her ATV to the top of Prospect Mountain with its grand views, and so I added “ATV passenger” to my list of firsts for the trip. The path to the summit is short but steep and muddy. The views on this sunny afternoon were breathtaking, dominated by big First Connecticut Lake. Mt. Magalloway loomed in the distance; I could just make out its fire tower. I was too dazed to take in the names of all the other peaks in sight.
Another CT supporter who’s a local guide has offered us a kayak trip up East Inlet later in the week. I’m delighted. I had planned a hike in that area, but the best way to see it is on the water. I can barely wait.
Now to review the day’s photographs, read for awhile, and get used to the monster bug that is fascinated by the lamp here in the Bungalow. Tourist injury update: at this point, aches & pains & blisters are manageable. Naproxen helps, and so do dry feet and moleskin.
Third in a series of posts about my 2009 hike on the northern section of the Cohos Trail.
(Update, 2026: Fortunately, Lake Francis State Park hasn’t changed much. It still has tent platforms set apart from RV sites. If you visit there, take time to rent a kayak and explore Lake Francis.)
Yesterday was not fun. It stopped short of being miserable, but I’m still glad to be past it. I now have even more respect than before for the folks who set out in June to through-hike the CT and were stopped within days by that month’s relentless downpours. I started whining to myself after only a few hours of rain. Not even thunderstorms, mind you — just rain. Gotta toughen up a bit.
I started the day feeling fine after a very good night’s sleep. A day-long hike is a great sleep-inducer. My first sight as I looked out the window this morning was a loon on Clarksville Pond, silently wishing me good morning.
I might have covered anywhere from 13 to 15 miles today, but it’s impossible for me to tell since the CT map doesn’t reflect the recent re-route through the Deadwater area. I was on the trail 8 hours, including stops for snacks & navigation & one maddening half-hour lost at a confusing intersection. The compass was handy.
I have blisters now. Oh, do I have blisters. I chose not to pack light shoes for camp in order to save space & weight. Bad move.
At least the rain held off for the first 3 hours or so of the day’s hike. Let me state firmly that I hate snowmobile corridor 21, on which the CT now travels for a few miles. Finding it was a cinch. Walking on it was a real pain. There are very few CT blazes, since the trail is “so easy to follow,” according to the CT website. Hmmm.
First big intersection: well-worn dirt road to left. Smaller trail to right. Little CT sign pointing (not facing northbound traffic, by the way) down the smaller trail. I stopped & brought out the compass, knowing that I ought to be heading north. Great: north was precisely between the two trails. I decided to pick one, walk 10 minutes, and if I found no CT sign, back up & try the other trail. Ten minutes brought me to one snowmobile sign, but no CT sign. I backtracked & walked down the larger road, which led to a logging yard & a gate. At least that only took 6 minutes (one way) to ascertain. OK, back to the smaller trail, corridor 21.
I couldn’t expect blazes on trees, with ditches on both sides of the trail. I hoped for a little brown CT sign, though. No such luck. The trail narrowed and became quite overgrown. I was heading in a northerly direction, there were no junctions, & the ridge running parallel to the trail to the east corresponded to a ridge on the map. Corridor 21 was really the only game in town.
Further on, still more weeds, & OUCH! I was hit by two simultaneous sudden attacks – a bee sting on my finger, and a sting or bite on my leg, clear through my sock, that I think must have come from a surprised & angry little garter snake. Are-we-there-yet came to mind, and not for the last time.
At last, Deadwater Loop Road. Go right or left – about 7 miles to the east end of Lake Francis in either case. I went left, hoping to hit Cedar Stream Road along the lake’s south shore within a couple of miles. Five minutes later, the rain started. I had packed most of my items within the backpack in sealed plastic bags, and that proved to be the smartest bit of preparation I’ve done. Neither a poncho nor a plastic garbage bag proved adequate today for covering me and my pack.
Cedar Stream Road is wide & flat, but views of the lake are mostly obstructed by trees & camps. There was no place to rest other than the ground. Rain continued off and on.
There was a little CT sign at the junction where the CT goes off Cedar Stream Road & picks up the Lake Francis Trail. I knew from the CT website that this boggy & soggy trail had been weed-whacked just a week ago, and I thank the trail volunteers for that much! A pox on any & all ATVers who have come through, turning every little brook & drainage into a quagmire. [2026 update: my attitude towards ATVers has mellowed to some degree. An upgraded network of ATV trails has made ATV tourism an important factor in the North Country economy.] At one point, the inevitable happened: one mud puddle couldn’t be skirted, & it was deeper than my boots. Boots, socks, feet – all wet. (No gaiters.) I knew then that blisters would form & intensify within minutes. Sun was out by then, although I was under such a thick canopy of trees on this trail that rain might not have been a problem.
The CT databook I carried said “keep left @ all junctions.” Junctions? The only one I saw was a signed snowmobile intersection, where I obediently went left. Are-we-there-yet was absolutely consuming me. The wobbly knees were back by this time. The sweetest sound of the day: an internal combustion engine somewhere ahead of me, confirming that there was a road nearby. (I knew that I was parallel to River Road, but bushwhacking wouldn’t have helped – the Connecticut River was in the way.)
At last! A road, a bridge, & a left turn put me on River Road. I’d have kissed the ground, but that would have meant getting up with the pack dragging me down.
Straight shot, about a mile, and I was at Lake Francis State Park & my little tent platform. I checked in & found my spot. Clouds were building again, so I pitched my tent right away, improvising long guy lines to accommodate the tent platform. Then, in order: ice cream from the park store, a shower, & a load of laundry. While the laundry was in the dryer, I used the pay phone to call home & check in. My husband knows not to worry, but my teenagers made clear to me before I left home that I was to call whenever I could. Now they know how I feel when they’re out somewhere! Good to hear their voices, as always.
There’s a loon calling nearby as I write this. My campsite is just a few trees away from the lake, away from the RVs, & I have civilized neighbors – a tranquil setting.
Rain resumed early in the evening, by which time I had everything buttoned up for the night. A neighbor came by with his dog to invite me to wait out the rain with his family under their screened canopy. Nice people. I declined, though, & I was in my sleeping bag moments later for what turned out to be 12 straight hours of sleep. My inexpensive little tent did NOT leak.
There’s that loon again. I’ll always associate that eerie cry with tranquility.
Granite State Walker 