We had a nice cool night in our campsite.  After breakfast, we finally all took showers!  Yay!  It was so nice to feel all clean!  These showers are pay per use showers, so it cost $2.50 for a 5 minute shower.  You weren’t able to add more money for more minutes.  It just cut off at 5 minutes.  Charlie thought it would be a great idea to install one of those machines in the showers at our house in order to keep certain people from staying in there for hours.  Mom and Dad may have liked that for certain ones of us growing up too, isn’t that right Robert?

After showers, it started raining.  We pulled out in the rain to drive to Northeast Catholic College.  We have a family friend who graduated from there last year and now has taken a job there.  We were able to get a tour and visit with our friend Connor.  The school was great!  I would love for some of our kids to attend there.  It would give me a great excuse to go visit, especially during the winter.  I would love to experience a New Hampshire winter!  I know what you are all thinking; Charlie thinks I am crazy too.   I always enjoy seeing people that I know from home in a totally different location in the country, so it was great to be able to spend some time with Connor.  We had lunch together at a great little mom and pop restaurant where the kids were able to eat a lot of brunch food inexpensively.  I like those kinds of deals!

The church at Northeast Catholic College.

After lunch, we left Connor and Northeast Catholic and drove back toward our campground and the White Mountains. We decided to just spend some time driving around trying to try to see the sights since it was still raining. We chose to drive the Kancamagus Highway since it wasn’t too far from us and was supposed to offer many beautiful sights. Despite the rain, I could definitely see the beauty. One of the first stops we made was at an overlook near the peak elevation of the highway, 2855 ft. Even I was surprised that the elevations weren’t a little higher here as we easily get to over 3000 in the Blue Ridge Mtns. However, the temperatures were definitely chillier than in the Blue Ridge Mtns in July. At this point, our van thermometer said it was 48 degrees outside. I definitely wanted to experience 48 degrees in July, so we hopped out of the van and took some pictures. Actually, I wasn’t going to take pictures, as the fog was obscuring our view, but when Nathanael made a comment like, “I see why they call it the White Mountains. Everything is white!” I decided that was very appropriate and needed to take a picture of the White Mountains on a very rainy day.

Yes, the mountains are certainly “white” 🙂

We stopped and saw a small waterfall and a covered bridge.

Charlie and I at the waterfall

Nathanael on the covered bridge.

The kids got out of the van and played on the rocks in a river on one quick stop, where of course most of them managed to get their shoes wet.  Thank goodness we bring two pairs of shoes.  Getting their sandals wet is one thing, but when they get tennis shoes wet, they take forever to dry out!

Amelia, Isaac, and AnaClaire standing IN the river wearing their shoes.

One of the views on the Kancamagus Highway

We even managed to find some wild blueberries, most not being ripe yet.  We ate just a few, but hopefully will find plenty to pick on this trip.

Wild blueberries – very small compared with the type we grow in the South, but still delicious!

We had a great time driving the Kancamagus Highway and headed back to the campground for a quick dinner and bed.  Ryon needed to work on his paper for a class, so he and I headed to Dunkin Donuts again for wifi and work.  Hopefully tomorrow the rain will let up, and we will have a day of being able to get out and sight-see!

Blessings,

Rebecca