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| a very typical white-washed village church |
Early on Gayle gets an unusual puncture - a long screw that goes in clean down the middle of her rear tyre and pierces the other side of the tube. Two holes to fix, later. The weather has settled down and as we climb around the foothills of the White Mountains we are offered great views.
We finally stop at a large crossroads with a closed-up tourist office and a steam engine parked up on the grass verge. After cooking dinner at a picnic bench we sneak into a little triangle of trees between slip road and the lights, and it turns out to be a very peaceful sleep.
Next day we are treated to the wonderful Franconia State Park and the National Forest Park which has a bike trail running the whole way, taking us up to the pass, and then down a track snaking alongside the main highway down the valley. It's a fantastic morning, and when we get to the bottom of the descent at Woodstock, we pause for lunch and then decide to go back up to another pass.
At the pass we cross the Appalachian Trail and descend into another forrested valley before traversing southwards. There are houses and farms dotted either side of the roads and when it gets dark we just climb up a steep bank and pitch the tent in the woods. It's someone's land, but it's not fenced. In amongst the big trees are stone walls - signs of the old farmsteads before they were reclaimed by the forest.
Next morning we descend into a wide valley running north-south. The mist is sitting low and takes a while to burn off. We are getting used to the sight of white picket fences and white clapboard houses with long verandahs. The villages are well-kept and pretty but there's not much sign of life. The road southwards is following the Connecticut River and we stay on the smaller road on the eastern shore.
At Orford we stop for lunch at a village store. Next door is the tiniest library we've ever seen. It's open in the afternoon and as soon as the librarian arrives we are in there to get online and use the facilities. It's a simple two room building and the librarian comes over to chat. Laina's from California. We end up staying all afternoon, catching up on messgaes and checking our onward route and contacting Warm Showers hosts. When Laina asks us where we're staying tonight we just shrug and say we're going to camp in the trees down the road. She's having none of it. She invites us to stay at her's. The only problem is that she has her book club this evening. Never mind, she says, go anyway, the door's open, take a shower, I'll phone my husband and tell him you're coming.
After the inevitable final climb up their road we arrive at Laina and Carey's
fabulous 17th century farmhouse. It's been adapted, renovated, but it's still essentially the original structure. Laina's husband, the local high school head teacher, looks a bit spaced out when we get there but soon warms up to these two strangers who've just disrupted his quiet Thursday evening. We have a lovely evening and get more time to chat with Laina the following morning. She explains that when they were doing their Peace Corps they received a great deal of kindness from people. We reap this kindness again.
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| with Laina |
