Saturday, September 27, 2008

Visitors and an Anniversary

It's been a busy week. My buddy Dave and his wife Bernice arrived in Boston Harbor on a cruise ship last Saturday, followed soon after by Oki and Clothilde from Germany (via NYC). We stopped by RiverSing on Sunday evening, and on Wednesday night Katy and I drove to New Hampshire to hike Mt. Chocorua as our anniversay celebration. I got a new camera last week, so all these goings on provided an excuse to give it a try.

Dave and I are friends from college; I met him a few weeks after arriving at FTU in the fall of '72, hanging out in the computer room late at night. He got me two of my early jobs (computer operator at Orange Memorial Hospital, and super-junior programmer at Orange County Public Schools), and we've somehow stayed in touch ever since. He and Bernice were passing through Boston on Saturday at the end of a ten day trans-Atlantic cruise, and we had the privilege of putting them up for the night. Here's Dave on our living room rug, noodling around with his fancy cell phone.

From Visitors and an anniversary


It was all too short a visit.

Later on Saturday Oki and Clothilde arrived by car from NYC. I won't go into all the details, but Katy knows Oki (and the rest of his family) from generations of cross-family extended visitations. Oki's brother, Toby, visited us earlier in the summer. Here are Clothilde and Oki at RiverSing on Sunday evening.

From Visitors and an anniversary


RiverSing was a big party in celebration of the autumn equinox on the north bank of the Charles River. It featured many singers (including Bill Staines, one of my favorites), big puppets and general frivolity. We were also treated to a lovely sunset.

From Visitors and an anniversary


From Visitors and an anniversary


From Visitors and an anniversary


Today is our anniversary; because my Morris team (the Pinewoods Morris Men) had a tour planned for today, Katy and I decided to celebrate our anniversary early by hiking Mt. Chocorua in New Hampshire. We originally planned to drive up on Thursday evening, but the threatening weather forecast led us to move the trip up a day. This monkey-wrenched our overnight plans; Katy had to find us a new inn for Wednesday night on short notice, and we weren't able to cancel the Thursday night reservation. This turned out to be just fine; once we finished the hike, we decided to spend Thursday in New Hampshire and drive home very early Friday morning.

Chorcorua has an incredibly exposed summit cone.

From Visitors and an anniversary


We decided to try a different route than our "usual" route up Chocorua (the Piper trail to the Carter Ridge trail and down the Hammond and Weetamoo trails) and instead did a loop up the Brooks trail and down the Liberty trail.


View Larger Map

From Visitors and an anniversary


This blowdown looked like a critter of some sort - a dragon? a moose?

From Visitors and an anniversary


The views from the top of the mountain were, as ever, spectacular, although the day was a bit hazy.

From Visitors and an anniversary


From Visitors and an anniversary


We took this self-portrait after finishing lunch at the summit.

From Visitors and an anniversary


We clowned around a bit at the Jim Liberty Cabin.

From Visitors and an anniversary


From Visitors and an anniversary


The trip down was fast, but it always seems longer that the trip up. We (especially our feet...) were happy to get back to the car.

From Visitors and an anniversary


From Visitors and an anniversary


The Gilman Tavern Inn in Tamworth was a great place to stay. The room was nice, and it's right across the street from a very funky little store (the "other" store, next door.)

From Visitors and an anniversary


From Visitors and an anniversary





Addendum: Katy has been uploading pictures to Picasa, including some from Mom's visit to Boston in August.

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