We trailered up the motorcycle with blind faith that, not only the weather would be nice enough to ride, but also that my neck would cooperate. And I am thrilled to report that we were blessed with 5 solid days of picture perfect weather and my neck was far better than I ever dreamed it would be. I was able to do all the riding that we wanted and I can't tell you how happy that makes me!
We took a leisurely drive up North on Saturday morning, stopping at Lake Winnipesaukee for lunch. This was the destination for an anniversary celebration in the past and it was nice to revisit the same cool beach lunch spot.
From there we made our way to North Conway. I had my heart set on riding the train and Karlo was a good sport. He actually very much enjoyed it too. We both felt like kids and I couldn't resist snapping a couple shots of some real kids.
Our ultimate destination this day was Gorham, which is on the North side of the park. I picked this place because that's where the advertised moose tours started from. We went into the motel office to check-in and I was greeted by this guy . . .
And I knew I made the right decision. After chatting with the motel owner about the tours, we decided on the do-it-yourself moose tour. She gave us the exact location of the real tour and I loved having the flexibility to stop anytime I wanted for photos. I got lots of photos of the river and ponds at dusk, but sadly no moose. That doesn't mean we didn't see any moose because, in fact, we saw FOUR moose. One of the greatest thrills of my life! I can cross another thing off my Bucket List. I finally saw real live moose in the wild. What I didn't realize was that all moose hunting happens at night, which is not the ideal photographic opportunity. The first moose we saw was standing in the middle of the road. I was so excited that I literally couldn't even get the camera to my face. I didn't want to be distracted and I just couldn't take my eyes off this creature. It was a young boy and he took his time ducking back into the woods. My heart was pounding and I was so thrilled I didn't even mind not getting the picture. Even if I got the picture it would have been terribly dark and crappy and you know I can't be bothered with bad pictures.
We continued the drive up to nearly Canada it seemed and we were running dry on spotting another moose. Karlo decided to pull off the road and shut the car so we can listen for moose and that proved to be brilliant. As soon as we stepped out of the car (parked on the side of a marshy area) we could hear splashing. We walked down a little closer to the water and we could just barely make out a big dark shape so Karlo got the car started again and pointed his headlights across the water. Sure enough there's a gigantic male moose with a huge rack of antlers splashing around in the water. He didn't seem even slightly annoyed by our headlights so we continued to watch him. I was giddy by this time.
But wait there's more. As we started to drive back down the road heading South (back to our motel) we ended up smack behind the 'real' moose tour vehicle. We figured we would follow them for as long as we could because they had big search lights. They soon caught on to our freeloading and they pulled over to make us pass. Not more than 1 minute after passing them we spot a boy and girl moose together on the side of the road. They were on a date! Too cute. We scared them off into the woods so the actual moose tour never even got to see them. Ha, that's what they get for pulling over.
The rest of the trip was all about motorcycle touring on endless beautiful roads, covered bridges, waterfalls, hiking trails, etc. It was simply perfect and the best way to tell the stories if via this movie. If you have 5 minutes, sit back and take a little trip to the White Mountains . . .
1 comment:
thanks for sharing your vacation and the photos are just great!
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