Brian

Top ten outdoor places that I've been in New England

Dove in the coves at Beavertail in RI - The rocky shores of Jamestown always make me think that a pirate ship is about to come over the horizon at any second and Beavertail is the best example of that type of place. One minute you're in a crowded parking lot, but walk towards the water and you'll likely be all alone climbing down the rocks to the water below.

Paddled across Squam Lake in NH - With mountains in the background and countless islands to explore, Lake Squam was great even if the place was a wee bit too big for our kayaks. We paddled for hours and still barely saw a fraction of this place.

Climbed to the top of Mt Washington in NH - Near the top we walked into the clouds and by the time we reached the summit there was no view, but it's pretty cool knowing that when I was posing for a picture at the peak, no one in New England was at a higher point that I was.

Drove up route 100 in VT - Normally I wouldn't consider a drive to be an outdoor adventure, but it all depends on where you stop. We could've spent the entire day making pit stops at trailheads along that route. We only hiked a few miles because we were trying to cram everywhere into the one drive, but we saw some great waterfalls and it's worth a return trip during the warmer months to be able to play in the water a little more.

Explored Smuggler's Notch in VT - I've never seen a place quite like this before. Cliffs shoot up on both sides of you as you drive through and if you're lucky enough to snag a parking spot you can hike up the side of one of the cliffs to Sterling Pond and the North Trail.

Biked Wendell State Forest in MA - There are likely better places to mountain bike, but this was one of my favorites. The uphills never seemed too steep, but the downhills were fast. We climbed up a hill to a scenic overlook before making our way back down and the terrain was perfectly suited for our skill level.

Rafted down the Kenebec River in ME - My memory of this weekend isn't exactly sharp since it was over ten years ago, but I do remember that it was a lot of fun and something that I want to do again. Our guide was great and we only one person from our party went overboard. No, it wasn't me, and yes, we did get her back.

Kayaked the Wood River in RI - I was tempted to go with the Swift River in MA here because I think I liked that place better. But I'm going with the Wood River because it has more potential. With two cars you could make an entire day of this, starting in Exeter and take the Wood River through most of South County.

Swam in East Pond in NH - You take a long dirt road through the woods to get to the trailhead and then hike a short, steep trail. There were a couple of other groups around at the same time, but it still had a very secluded feel to it. The pond that we eventually made it to was something right out of a movie with the crystal clear water and mountainous backdrop.

Spelunked through the caves of Purgatory Chasm in MA - This still is, and probably always will be, one of my favorite places to go. Age has zapped some of my spider-monkey ability and a little extra thickness has made some of the caves impossible, but it's a great place for a climb.

5 more places I want to go to

Camel Hump Mountain in VT - It's Vermont's third highest peak and the highest undeveloped one with no ski lifts or mountainside gift shops. On a clear day you can see the highest points in MA, VT, NH, and NY

Mt Greylock in MA - Mass's highest peak is just a bump compared to the mountains running through NH, but it's something I want to see. It should be a relatively easy hike and if we do it in the spring there are waterfalls and scenic brooks on every side

White Mountain National Forest in ME - The White Mountains in NH get all the attention, but the park actually extends quite a bit into Maine. Less than an hour away from North Conway there is plenty to explore

Arcadia in ME - Bar Harbor is supposed to be the most beautiful town in all of New England. Cliffs and sunrises, mountains and beaches it combines the best of both worlds.

Anywhere in CT - I've always hated CT. It is, by far, my least favorite state in New England. Most of the time they just think they're a suburb of New York. But there's gotta be some nice stuff here to visit. I hear the Litchfield Hills are great. The northeast corner is apparently nice and secluded. There's probably some good coastline and I know there are plenty of lakes and rivers to put a kayak in. I just have to find them.

They say a picture is worth 1000 words so here we have 55000 words on how Columbus Day weekend went this year. So sum things up, for those of you who don't like pictures, there was a lot of food and beer.

Tuesday morning Erin and I hopped into the car and we started the long drive north. Turns out the drive didn't seem that long though. Right around noon time we rolled into the Long Trail Brewery for lunch and a quick self guided tour. It's not my favorite beer company, but they do have some good beer so we bought a couple of t-shirts before moving on. Since we were already off the highway we began to make our way up Vermont by the scenic route. This is where a book on New England waterfalls came in handy. We made four stops on the way north and they were four stops that were well worth visiting. We checked into our hotel before heading into downtown Burlington for dinner that night and we wound up going to the Vermont Brewery and Pub. They wound up being ok, but nothing really great.

It was more driving again the next day as we decided to do a scenic loop through Vermont from Burlington through Stowe and then back again. Our first stop was the Boyden Valley Winery where they gave us a quick tour before letting us sample their wines. It turns out that Erin and I are really big fans of ice wine, but it also turns out that ice wine is very expensive. From there we headed towards Smuggler's Notch. We took one of the last parking spots left in the area and started playing on the rocks. It wasn't long before we saw a trail off to the side and decided to start following it. Erin really wasn't feeling very well, but we kept going a little further and then a little further. By the time she was ready to turn back we bumped into a family who said that the top wasn't too much further so we kept going. The top turned out to be Sterling Pond on the side of the Long Trail. It was a fun hike with a great place for a break at the top before we headed back down. Next up was a stop at Bingham Falls. A short walk into the woods and we came across a series of falls crashing over the rocks. Hunger and impending darkness cut our visit a little short, but we still had time for one more stop. We took a ski lift up to the top of Mt Mansfield, the highest point in Vermont. Unfortunately we arrived 15 minutes before they were about to shut down so once we got to the top we had to turn around and head back down. After we left the mountain we grabbed some dinner and then saw a couple of baby cows frolicking around which might have been Erin's favorite part of the trip. The way back to the hotel just happened to pass by Ben and Jerry's and while it was too late for a tour, they were still open for ice cream, so we grabbed a couple of cones, visited the flavor graveyard, and called it a night.

Thursday we headed into downtown Burlington to explore for the first time during the day. We ate breakfast at the Skinny Pancake and then went for a bike ride along Lake Champlain. After that it was time to eat lunch at the Red Onion, a place that a friend highly recommended, and with good reason. Their sandwich was damn good. We walked around downtown for a while, but not many of the shops in the area kept our attention for very long. We killed an hour at a small aquarium and then headed for dinner where we met Erin's cousin and her family. We had what was probably our favorite meal of the trip and then headed back to Erin's cousin's house to stay the night.

The next morning it was raining. Not just raining, but pouring. It was coming down in buckets. That's probably a large part of the reason why we slept later that morning than we did all week and even after we did wake up, leaving the house seemed like it was a bad idea. The satelite tv kicked the bucket while Erin was taking her shower, otherwise we may never have left. We started our rainy day journey at another winery. This one was smaller and we weren't as impressed with the wines, but we bought a bottle anyways before moving on. We left the Hero Islands and headed into Shelburne where we first hit the Magic Hat Brewery. I've never been a huge fan of their beers, but they gave us some free samples and they had a pretty cool looking place. We had lunch before heading back into the rain where we came across Shelburne Farms. They offered us a tour, but because of the rain we passed on that and instead bought a coffee and donut to go along with our free cheese samples. We hit our third winery of the week where we finally found an ice wine that wasn't too expensive. Then we headed to the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory where they gave us a tour and we were able to see how baby bears are born. A quick stop at the Lake Champlain Chocolate Factory and we were back on our way to Hero Island for dinner with Erin's family. Of course my car picked the heaviest rain of the day for the driver's side windshield wiper to break, but who really needs to see when they're driving? Our final night there was spend eating pizza and watching some tv with her family.

We opted to risk driving home without the aid of a windshield wiper even though it was still raining mostly because we didn't want to turn a six hour drive into a 9 hour ordeal. We made it out of the clouds ok and even saw some of the first snow of the season in the mountains. We ate lunch at the Common Man in New Hampshire before making our way back home.

I packed the kayaks and bike the night before, so bright and early I was on my way. By 8 I had already met up with my brother and we tossed everything into the back of his truck. As we neared our destination one of the main roads turned into a single lane path and he had to slam on the breaks to narrowly avoid hitting a beaver crossing the road. That was our first hint that we were in the middle of nowhere.

We put the kayaks into the Swift River and I couldn't believe how nice the water was. I don't think I've ever seen river water so clear before. We found a couple of coves to poke around in and plenty of places to get out for a swim if the water hadn't have been so cold. We got to a set of falls and hadn't had enough yet so we carried around them and put into some "rapids" at the bottom. They were nothing big and scary, just a bit of fast flowing water. Kevin went in first and it was too shallow so he mostly wound up scooting along hitting a rock or two along the way. When I went in I tried to go around that part and find a deeper part, but the current grabbed me and lodged me between two rocks, sideways. The kayak started filling with water and I sunk. I didn't even know that was possable in a kayak. I had to get out of the boat and put all my muscle into getting the submerged thing slightly emptied so that it would float and I could drag it to the shore. After emptying it out we made it a little further down before we saw that the river started to pick up speed. Knowing that even if we were able to make it through, we'd never be able to paddle back, we turned around and headed back to the truck where we grilled a couple of steaks before moving on.

Our next stop was the Holyoke Range State Park for some mountain biking. The word range probably should've tipped us off that we'd be riding on a series of peaks. To make things worse when we were looking at the map we decided that we were hellbent on making it to the top of the tallest one. At no point did we think that was a good idea, but we got it into our heads and were too stubborn to change our minds. I'm not sure how long it took, but it seemed like we were dragging those bikes up the side of a mountain forever before we finally got to the top of the 1100' peak. I went to grab my camera to take a picture of the great view on top only to realize that I no longer had my camera. We had to retrace our steps back down the path that we hated so much the first time before we somehow managed to see the brown case lying on the side of the trail. By that time we were already exhausted, but pressed on not wanting to drive all that way for nothing. In the end we decided that we weren't a big fan of that place and all it's riding uphill.

After checking into the hotel for a quick shower we hit the town of Amherst for some dinner and a few drinks. We had high hopes for the Amherst Brew Pub since we're all for anyone serving us a beer that we've never had before, but the place turned out pretty bad. I got about three bites of meat in my steak tips and Kevin said his fish was horrible. The service was subpar and the beer was just ok. That wasn't too bad of a thing though because what we really needed was an early night.

After a nice, long sleep in a couple of comfortable beds we hit the road again. We were in some pain and didn't think we'd go too far into Wendell State Forrest. Kevin even pretty much asked one of the rangers "We're here to mountain bike....but what path should we go to avoid the mountains?". Once we got out we felt fine though. The trails were a lot better and not nearly as steep and hilly. We made it a lot further than we thought we were going to, including a ride to the highpoint in the park with a scenic vista.

When we left there we started heading home, but not without one more stop. When planning the trip I realized that the Wachusetts Brewery was only a mile off the path that we were taking home. So a stop there was definitely in order. I learned that Wachusetts has the highest output per square foot of brewery out of any brewery in the country and it showed. The place was tiny. They gave us a few samples and showed us around. It was a pretty short tour, I bought a growler of blueberry for Erin and we headed home.

I bled, I fell, I broke my phone, I nearly lost a camera, and I was sore for two days afterwards, but it was a good trip. I like getting to see new parts of the world and it was a really nice part that we got to see.

A quick glance at my calendar would be more than enough evidence, but I'll go ahead and state the obvious. I've lost interest in LJ. This is my first post in 2010 after just 10 in 2009. I am, in fact alive. The one thing I've been wanting to do lately here is write about vacations. The day to day stuff isn't fun to write about, but vacations are fun to talk about and fun to look back on. So I'll try to be a little better with that at least.

I'm not sure if last weekend counts as a vacation as it wasn't even a long weekend, but we went away and we did a lot of stuff, so it's a good place to start.

We started our trip to New Hampshire around 6pm on Friday and around 8pm I lost my virginity. Visions of french fries danced in our head as I broke a several year streak of no fast food and we stopped at Wendy's. I had my first baconator. It was exactly what I expected it to be; five minutes of a very good burger followed by five hours of nausea and wishing I hadn't done it. The baconator is like what I imagine running a marathon is like. It's great to say that I've done it, I'm glad that I've done it, and I'm never gonna do it again.

We rolled into Erin's family's cabin in North Conway around 10 and after a brief tour of a very nice place all I could think of was sleep. And so we slept.

We started the morning off with a big breakfast. One of the many advantages to staying in a house over a hotel is that you have the ability to cook real food. The disadvantage to that is we got a somewhat late start. But it was still technically morning when we put the kayaks into Lake Conway. The water was nice, the place was fairly quiet, and we had a mountain backdrop. After a couple of hours of paddling we made our way back to shore and agreed that it was one of our favorite places that we've kayaked so far.

We headed into downtown Conway to grab some lunch and walked around for a couple of hours. It's kinda weird walking through a downtown and seeing mountains looming on every side. I wanted to climb every one of them. We had no time for that, though. We had dinner reservations at the White Mountain Resort. The only thing better than the view from our table was the prime rib.

Another advantage to staying in a house over a hotel is that we had a finished basement with a fooseball table and a huge flatscreen tv. That was more than enough to occupy our time before heading off to bed. One of my last thoughts before going to bed was realizing that I had gone an entire day without Dunkin Donuts for the first time that I can remember since our trip to San Francisco last fall.

Breakfast time brought another big meal while we packed our stuff and hit the road. One weekend wasn't enough to take advantage of the cabin and its location. On the way back we stopped by a place called Monkey Trunks. I was somehow able to convince Erin to do the most difficult course and it was a lot of fun. It started with a climb up a wooden rope ladder, 65 feet up into the canopy of the forrest. We had to go from platform to platform by navigating ropes and logs. It was not easy. We didn't make it very far before we saw the course's first casualty. A woman had falled off and couldn't climb back on. The people working there had to rescue her. Erin and I made it the entire way, but Erin wasn't too thrilled with how hard the last couple of obstacles were. She rested on the ground while I made my way through again. We also did the drop zone where they basically take you to the top of a tall tower and then tell you to jump off. The whole place was a lot of fun and somewhere we'd probably go back to.

The way home seemed longer than the way up and, oddly enough, after a whole weekend of not seeing much more than a couple of turtles as far as nature goes, we saw a deer on the side of the highway in West Roxbury on the way home.

I'm using a rental van for Christmas and it's not very big, especially when compared to our normal diesels. I left the building today filled from top to bottom, back to front. My first stop was a good sized bulk stop that cleared out a lot of room, but I was still pretty full. I had a pick up on my screen that said I had to pick up 4 big boxes and they wanted me there before 1 oclock. I sent a message to dispatch saying that I wasn't going to be able to pick up the stop by 1 because I couldn't shove another box into the back of my van without the aid of some roofracks or a lot of lube. Dispatch's reply was "the customer is visually impared". Ok......so what does that have to do with anything? I replied with "Great! So she won't know that I'm showing up late because she won't be able to see the clock."

I also got pulled over today. Someone got a little freaked out that a guy was getting out of an unmarked van and going through their neighbor's yard so they called the cops. A couple stops later a cop was coming in the opposite direction. He turned around and came after me. He was cool about it at least. He got a little chuckle when he looked inside and saw that I was delivering packages. After checking the back of my van to make sure it wans't full of stolen tv's, he let me go.

is moving.

The appeal of Facebook is pretty obvious. I mean, you can play Oregon Trail! And there's other stuff too. Status updates are handy and quick ways to let the world know how you're doing. Twitter, on the other hand, is still absolutely retarded. There's no reason to give two dozen one liners during the course of you're day. Really, you're not that exciting. Don't feel bad, neither am I. The people who update their status message 6 jillion times a day? They wind up on my ignore list. I'd shoot myself if I had to follow my friends. But used sparingly status messages are great! But onto my original point....

is moving.

After 2 years in Cranston and all 28.917 years of my life in Rhode Island, I'm off to the far, far away land of Massachusetts. Erin and I found a townhouse to rent in Attleboro, right over the border. It has everything we were looking for in a place. It's a 2 floor, 2 bedroom, 1.5 bathroom with a big kitchen, full basement, private fenced in yard, washer/dryer/dishwasher, and there's no problem with pets. We'll be there before the start of July.

Help the Boston Bruins, the Bruins Foundation, and my beard by donating to the Beard-a-thon. Playoff beards are a long standing tradition amongst hockey players and this year the Boston Bruins are encouraging the fans to get in on the action. All proceeds go to benefit the Bruins Foundation, a charity that focusses on improving the quality of life for New England children in a lot of different ways and the Beard-a-thon has already raised over $80,000. Not to mention our combined playoff beards have already propelled the Bruins to game 7 in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Take a look and donate a buck or two if you can. With paypal it's incredibly easy and without paypal it's still very easy. I haven't donated under my name yet, but I have donated $25 for a friend. I will individually match any of your donations up to $5 though. So if you donate $1, I donate $1. If you donate $5, I donate $5. If 100 of you each donate $5 then I'll be donating $500. Luckly I don't know 100 people! Feel free to donate as much as you'd like and at the very least give my beard a 5 puck rating!

Bruins Foundation

I've decided that, as of today, I'm no longer going to go to work. Fedex's fiscal year ends and begins on June 1st. So we need to get all our vacation days out of the way before then. Every year I'm left with 2 or 3 stray days that never found their way into my schecule during the year so at random points in April and May, I get the day off. Today is one of those days.

I dropped my car off this morning for some minor maintenance type things and walked the dog back to my place. Everyone I met waved, said hi, and some even stopped to talk. Everyone wanted to pet the dog and everyone seemed so happy. People who aren't at work at 9am on a perfect spring day have to be in a good mood. It's in the rule book. So I've decided to retire and become one of those people.

This is where you, my LJ friends and anyone else who happens across this comes in. I need donations. I'm not independantly wealthy. So in order to make this work I'm going to need at least $50,000 a year, preferably more, in donations. Every little bit helps, but a lotta bits would help even more.

Also I decided to do one of those 100-facts-that-you-don't-know-about-me memes, but I only actually have one thing. When I realized that one thing the other day my first thought was that it'd go great in one of those memes. But I'm not really interested in sitting down to come up with 99 more of those things. So here is 1/100th of my list of 100 facts that you don't know about me; when I buy the paper, I never take the top one. I always reach under for the second paper in the stack. I have no idea why. Maybe it's because the top paper always seems a bit wrinkled. Maybe it's because I think the second paper in the stack will have better news in it. If I were ever presented with the last paper in a stack, I'm not sure what I'd do. I never noticed this about myself until the other day.

Are there any official rules when it comes to black cats? Is it a case by case basis here? Does it count if a black cat with white feet crosses your path? What if a black cat crosses in front of you, but you turn around and go the other way? What if you don't see the cat when he crosses in front of you? Is there a time limit on how long the cat crossing lasts if you don't cross it? Are there all sorts of cat crossing bad luck booby traps all over the ground from cats who crossed years ago? What if the cat crosses behind you on a path that you've already? Is thre a record for most consecutive questions asked in an LJ entry?

The weekend consisted of booze and naketivity. There was a hike, an old people party (drinks, board games, and movies without having to buy a single $6 beer at the bar), and free pizza and donuts while helping my mom move. Of course, there was also the moment we've all been waiting for for months; opening day of the baseball season. But the biggest highlight of the weekend came at the begining of our hike. We took the dogs to a hiking trail that we had never been to. Not 100 yards into the woods we saw a dog peaking out behind a big rock. He gave us the look. Ya know, the "OMG! Other dogs for me to play with!" look. Yeah, OMG...dogs aren't very smart. But anyways, he wanted to play. The fact that he had a small child holding his leash didn't matter. He charged us. The girl gave a very valiant effort trying to keep up with the bolting dog, but that didn't last long. The face plant was epic. Professional stunt men couldn't have pulled it off as well. She was dragged for a little bit before finally being able to let go. She started wailing as the dog came to greet us. It was one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. Erin thinks I'm a horrible person for laughing so much. Personally I feel like I'm a helluva guy for at least waiting until we were out of sight of the girl before laughing at her. Highlight number two of the weekend came during the move. My mom just bought her first house and the families were there to help with the move. The old oven was sitting in the front yard waiting to be thrown away. I noticed that in the bottom oven tray there was a french fry. No one had lived in the house for a while so who knows how long that fry was there. I called my brother, who was working in the basement, to let him know about what was found. I offered him a ten to eat it. Someone else chimed in with "hell, for $10, I'll eat it!". So my brother said he'd do it for $5. Sure enough, I brought the fry down to him, he inspected it for a second, and started chewing. It was pretty crunchy. In case you're wondering, my brother is 26. Ladies, as I said in my last post, as unbelievable as this sounds, my brother is single. So act now before someone else snaps him up! Like I've been telling people, my brother just isn't very picky about what he puts in his mouth...