June 13, 2008 - Day Three
We've settled in. Took slightly longer to feel comfortable, since we have the added presence of a young girl with us. Takes some of the spontaneity away from us. We've got to consider her well-being, her needs, her presence and the probability of acceptance of our choices first.
And, since we're her grandparents we must needs behave grand-parently. Which we've been long accustomed to, in any event, having raised her as secondary care-givers during the working week, from infancy to age nine. And then we had a break from one another, when her mother moved with her to a more distant home.
So here we are again, back together for a one-week period of time. Of course, during the summer months and school break we often had her with us for three-day periods of time, and likely will again. But this close exposure to one another is special, for a longer period of time, and completely away from our, and her home environment.
She hasn't found all that much difference in her first and brief experience, being in rural America, as opposed to her own home, in rural Canada. Those differences she notes are slight and unobtrusive. Alas, she's already infected with the plague of Canadian superiority over anything American. We'll manage to shed a little of that for her.
And we've developed a template for our days here. The most vital part of her day's experience revolves around her mealtimes. So we start off each and every day with a sizeable and nutritious - certainly filling - breakfast. She has become enamoured of these long and leisurely breakfasts.
Her half-grapefruit, tumbler of white/pink cranberry juice, scrambled eggs, turkey strips (she eschews pork and beef), toast spread with jam or cream cheese - and she shares my pot of tea. I've given up wondering how she can manage to pack it all in, because she does, handily, and seems no worse the wear for it.
Having thus girded herself to face the morning, she's ready for anything. She obediently and unenthusiastically makes up her bed, then she applies herself to a cross-word puzzle, or reading one of her novels, until I've cleaned away the kitchen, made our bed, done a quick vacuuming, assembled all of our daily-used linen for replacement, taken out the kitchen waste, and prepare to put together whatever we might need for our jaunt, in my backpack.
That's when she springs into action and puts together the lunch she'll be carrying in her backpack. Along with myriad choices of snacks. Little round, separately packaged (and wasteful) cheese rounds, cookies, individual packs of yogurt, choice of fruit, and a small bag of nuts, or candies.
Her grandfather, in the interim, has seen to the needs of our little dogs. Taken them out for their initial waste release and sniff-about the grassy lawn. Sitting with them in the sun, scrutinizing our White Mountain trail guide. And hob-nobbing with our genial host who always has time to stand around and chat, regardless of the amount of work he invariably has to attend to, around his property.
And then we're ready to depart for the better part of the day. But perhaps not quite, not today. We're forecasted to have sun and heat; well into the 80s. Too hot for an ambitious climb. Besides which we already performed the most strenuous of the climbs we planned for, the day before, when it was more auspicious weather-wise for that kind of energetic enterprise.
Today, we decide, we'll take a bit of a stroll, to take into account our still-aching limbs. Truth is, it's rather more than a stroll, in any event. An enjoyable partial ascent, gradual and gentle in comparison to yesterday's jaunt. Unlike yesterday, there's little wind, so the sun's rays are immediately warming.
A relatively short hike would do for today, since this might very well be the only opportunity Angelyne has to make use of the swimming pool sitting there, waiting her return. On our way to Smarts Brook, we stop to pick up the Boston Globe for later reading, as usual. We'd earlier picked up our permit for use of the State's forest reserves. We find ourselves the only car in the parking lot, and set off.
We enjoy the slow and picturesque rise alongside the steep canyon siding the mountain stream. We divert time and again from the trail to make our way closer to the stream, to watch it splashing and churning over the rockface it drains down onto, haphazardly strewn with boulders and rocks of every conceivable shape and colour, the water coursing and hitting the rocky obstacles and creating a roar of triumph as it proceeds. Each of us is equipped with a digital camera and we make good use of this opportunity.
Button and Riley snuffle about, getting underfoot, and Button manages to reach the water's edge, dipping her dainty feet into its clear crystalline coolness. She loves the water, while Riley does his utmost to avoid contact with it. Given the right circumstances, she will unhesitatingly dive into the water where it's calm, to retrieve a stone we've tossed for her into its shallow depths, which she's been able to sniff out from among others.
The forest is cool and sheltered from the sun. Rays of the sun slant through where they can, under and through the canopy of mature hemlock, spruce, fir, pine and dogwood, with oak and maple and yellow birch specimens of sizeable dimensions. Underfoot there are lilies of the valley, buttercups, daisies, cinquefoil, wood sorrel, and wonderful bright pink Ladies Slippers, those regal orchids of the woods. Yellow and black Admirals abound here, fluttering about in an ancient ritual of mating.
We pass inviting, yet never yet ventured cross-trails, preferring to track alongside the creek. And we progress ever upward, ascending new heights where the gorge impresses us with its smooth veneer of rockface made brilliant by the spray of the rushing waters, the groundwater rushing down its height. It's interspersed here and there with luxuriant growths of ferns. And lichen, in various colours further dresses up the granite outcrops.
It's not a long hike by any measure, but one of the most beautiful we'll be taking this week. Our photographs will attest to that, but they'll never recapture the beauty we see more directly through the experience of being there, seeing it all in its variety and complex dimensions which photographs try but cannot quite capture. And then it's turn-about and return the way we had come. We'll do the two-and-a-half hour circuit, next time out.
This excessively warm and sunny afternoon will be devoted to enabling our grandchild to have her fill of fun in the cottage-resort's swimming pool. And on that later occasion, watching her abundant appreciation of the cool water, the mountain backdrop, I take plenty of photographs of that child disporting herself.
And, since we're her grandparents we must needs behave grand-parently. Which we've been long accustomed to, in any event, having raised her as secondary care-givers during the working week, from infancy to age nine. And then we had a break from one another, when her mother moved with her to a more distant home.
So here we are again, back together for a one-week period of time. Of course, during the summer months and school break we often had her with us for three-day periods of time, and likely will again. But this close exposure to one another is special, for a longer period of time, and completely away from our, and her home environment.
She hasn't found all that much difference in her first and brief experience, being in rural America, as opposed to her own home, in rural Canada. Those differences she notes are slight and unobtrusive. Alas, she's already infected with the plague of Canadian superiority over anything American. We'll manage to shed a little of that for her.
And we've developed a template for our days here. The most vital part of her day's experience revolves around her mealtimes. So we start off each and every day with a sizeable and nutritious - certainly filling - breakfast. She has become enamoured of these long and leisurely breakfasts.
Her half-grapefruit, tumbler of white/pink cranberry juice, scrambled eggs, turkey strips (she eschews pork and beef), toast spread with jam or cream cheese - and she shares my pot of tea. I've given up wondering how she can manage to pack it all in, because she does, handily, and seems no worse the wear for it.
Having thus girded herself to face the morning, she's ready for anything. She obediently and unenthusiastically makes up her bed, then she applies herself to a cross-word puzzle, or reading one of her novels, until I've cleaned away the kitchen, made our bed, done a quick vacuuming, assembled all of our daily-used linen for replacement, taken out the kitchen waste, and prepare to put together whatever we might need for our jaunt, in my backpack.
That's when she springs into action and puts together the lunch she'll be carrying in her backpack. Along with myriad choices of snacks. Little round, separately packaged (and wasteful) cheese rounds, cookies, individual packs of yogurt, choice of fruit, and a small bag of nuts, or candies.
Her grandfather, in the interim, has seen to the needs of our little dogs. Taken them out for their initial waste release and sniff-about the grassy lawn. Sitting with them in the sun, scrutinizing our White Mountain trail guide. And hob-nobbing with our genial host who always has time to stand around and chat, regardless of the amount of work he invariably has to attend to, around his property.
And then we're ready to depart for the better part of the day. But perhaps not quite, not today. We're forecasted to have sun and heat; well into the 80s. Too hot for an ambitious climb. Besides which we already performed the most strenuous of the climbs we planned for, the day before, when it was more auspicious weather-wise for that kind of energetic enterprise.
Today, we decide, we'll take a bit of a stroll, to take into account our still-aching limbs. Truth is, it's rather more than a stroll, in any event. An enjoyable partial ascent, gradual and gentle in comparison to yesterday's jaunt. Unlike yesterday, there's little wind, so the sun's rays are immediately warming.
A relatively short hike would do for today, since this might very well be the only opportunity Angelyne has to make use of the swimming pool sitting there, waiting her return. On our way to Smarts Brook, we stop to pick up the Boston Globe for later reading, as usual. We'd earlier picked up our permit for use of the State's forest reserves. We find ourselves the only car in the parking lot, and set off.
We enjoy the slow and picturesque rise alongside the steep canyon siding the mountain stream. We divert time and again from the trail to make our way closer to the stream, to watch it splashing and churning over the rockface it drains down onto, haphazardly strewn with boulders and rocks of every conceivable shape and colour, the water coursing and hitting the rocky obstacles and creating a roar of triumph as it proceeds. Each of us is equipped with a digital camera and we make good use of this opportunity.
Button and Riley snuffle about, getting underfoot, and Button manages to reach the water's edge, dipping her dainty feet into its clear crystalline coolness. She loves the water, while Riley does his utmost to avoid contact with it. Given the right circumstances, she will unhesitatingly dive into the water where it's calm, to retrieve a stone we've tossed for her into its shallow depths, which she's been able to sniff out from among others.
The forest is cool and sheltered from the sun. Rays of the sun slant through where they can, under and through the canopy of mature hemlock, spruce, fir, pine and dogwood, with oak and maple and yellow birch specimens of sizeable dimensions. Underfoot there are lilies of the valley, buttercups, daisies, cinquefoil, wood sorrel, and wonderful bright pink Ladies Slippers, those regal orchids of the woods. Yellow and black Admirals abound here, fluttering about in an ancient ritual of mating.
We pass inviting, yet never yet ventured cross-trails, preferring to track alongside the creek. And we progress ever upward, ascending new heights where the gorge impresses us with its smooth veneer of rockface made brilliant by the spray of the rushing waters, the groundwater rushing down its height. It's interspersed here and there with luxuriant growths of ferns. And lichen, in various colours further dresses up the granite outcrops.
It's not a long hike by any measure, but one of the most beautiful we'll be taking this week. Our photographs will attest to that, but they'll never recapture the beauty we see more directly through the experience of being there, seeing it all in its variety and complex dimensions which photographs try but cannot quite capture. And then it's turn-about and return the way we had come. We'll do the two-and-a-half hour circuit, next time out.
This excessively warm and sunny afternoon will be devoted to enabling our grandchild to have her fill of fun in the cottage-resort's swimming pool. And on that later occasion, watching her abundant appreciation of the cool water, the mountain backdrop, I take plenty of photographs of that child disporting herself.
Labels: Family, Peregrinations
posted by Pieface @ 5:51 PM
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