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Finding that last summer's 'escape to the north' vacation worked well to disrupt our protracted Texas summers, we repeated the venture again this year, this time visiting New England. Unfortunately, we were met by a number of less than ideal circumstances - I contracted some kind of illness almost immediately upon our arrival and Hurricane Irene was on the approach.

We spent a very long first day making up for all the hiking we didn't get to do this summer - first at Flume Gorge in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Following lunch we started hike #2 on Falling Waters Trail, intending to climb all the way to the summit of Little Haystack Mountain. We thought surely this would be no problem at all as the trail was only 3.25 miles one way. I knew it was a steep mountain just from reading about it, so I must have been deluding myself that the trail would gently meander it's way up the mountain. I was wrong. It was 3.25 miles of up. Boulders, stairs, crossing streams here and there. It was beautiful - just what we've been missing out on in Dallas, but it was too strenuous for us out-of-shape, currently non-hiking hikers and we decided to give up after learning from several descending hikers that after about two and a half hours on the trail we still had an hour of up to go before reaching the summit. Even so, we enjoyed several gorgeous waterfalls along the way. I think this one's called "Cloudland Falls:"Having a little bit a daylight left and suffering the disappointment that we didn't get to enjoy a view from the top, we cheated our way to the top of a different mountain by way of the aerial tram on Cannon Mountain. We had a nice view of Echo Lake from the tram:And a nice view of a black bear too!

...is a book that ROCKS!! Wow! What a great story. In this book, The City of Gold and Lead by John Christopher, Will, Henry, and Beanpole try a dangerous plan to get into the city of the aliens who have taken over the world. They train to enter the Games, a sort of Olympics, because the winners go into the city and serve the Masters. And the competition at the Games is fierce because everyone on earth (except Will and his friends) wears the Cap, a device that makes people mind slaves to the Masters. Can they get in? Without the Masters finding out that they wear fake Caps? Even if they can get in, what can a couple of boys do against the aliens who have taken over the whole world? I tell you, this was one exciting book! Go find a copy--or better yet, get the first one, The White Mountains, and start there. It's so good that you'll pick up this one as soon as you finish. That's what I'm doing with The Pool of Fire, the third book. These books are so good that, after you finish one, you can't wait to start the next one!

Carl
PS--if you want to read my review 0f The White Mountains, click on the tab below this post.