Sacred & Profane

yesterday we made a little trip into new hampshire. we hadnt driven around boston for the longest time! first we drove to manchester, to the currier museum where we had free entrance with our bank of america card. they have quite a big collection of dutch paintings from the 1600 and 1700s.... while driving back home we drove through goffstown and passed the above bookshop. that as quite interesting! the owner was just leaving, but opened the shop again just for us.... tim asked why the books were sacred and profane, and he told us that approximately half the books are religious in nature and the other half not...

and well, today we went to the museum of fine arts for free (again with our bank card.. :)), where they had an exhibition of drawings by michelangelo, named "sacred and profane"! half of them were of the human body, and the other half were architectural drawings. that was quite interesting, especially to think that those drawings are 500 years old!! 

Sun rays

this was at our campsite in new hampshire, 2 weeks back. in the morning we saw the most gorgeous sun rays on the river... :) most likely because there was a lot of smoke in the air from all the BBQ fires at many sites, people start them up early in the morning already! 

building a fired was really nice (or rather, tim did that, i just commented, so i should say, having a fire in the evening is really nice, but i didnt like smelling like it. everything smelled like campfire when we got back.... so even for just 2 nights, i had a huge amount of laundry to do....

Still amateurs...

we thought it was nice to go camping again (our first time was last year in acadia, maine, in september). as shown yesterday, we went to the white mountains this time. with all the crazy hot and humid weather, we didnt factor in the possibility of rain. somehow. even though every now and then we had quite the downpours here in boston... we left friday afternoon, just when it started to rain heavily! it was a 2.5 hour drive to our campsite, but there was some traffic. and rain! heavy, heavy rain that didnt seem like it would stop anytime soon. buuuhh... we found a walmart to buy some tarp, as many others did before us; most of it was sold out already. then to the dollar store (where everything really is 1 dollar, i like that store.. :) ), for some more cheap handy stuff. and yep, it was still raining when we reached the camping. luckily not as heavily, but enough to make everything wet. tim hung up the first tarp (i gave the occasional comment while watching), and then we put up the tent without getting too wet. like last year, another camper came over to ask whether we needed any help. it makes me wonder; do we look that amateurish or is it the "happy camper etiquette" that i dont know yet...? he also mentioned it was the 8th time he was there, on the same spot........ we got up the second tarp to stay dry during dinner and tim made a fire; not easy when its raining.... 

unfortunately, we were too late with booking the camp site and thus the next day we had to move all our crap and set up again 2 sites further, and thats what you see above... :) isnt it a wonder of fine engineering? (the tarps, i mean). right behind is the river, which we heard the entire night (quite soothing). this time we put the tarp right above the fireplace; nothing burned down and building a fire was quite a bit easier! also the second day we had quite some rain. everything was muddy and wet, and nothing wanted to get dry.... :( i could only think of how i would throw everything in the washing machine when back home again (i dont like dirt..., just because of that i will never reach the "real camper status", im sure...). 

so... it was fun! and extremely interesting to observe the real american campers. my goodness! so many chairs (whatever they do, americans always bring a foldable chair)! and tents! and an american flag here and there (as if we dont know where we are...), partylights around the tent or RV or whatever..., food, food, food, and more electrical appliances than we have in our kitchen at home.... :) i guess im fine with remaining an amateur....

Back again!

we were out the past 2 nights! we went to the white mountains in new hampshire. no internet, no phone.... just..... eehmmm... rain... :) and very hot and humid weather. and some more rain. and beautiful scenery, disappearing in the fog.... as you can see above!

it was fun, but now im tired so more tomorrow!

When snow...

....refuses to come to boston..we have to go to the snow! grrr... still not one flake here... :( i liked it so much last year, and now... nothing, nothing, nothing... 

we went to new hampshire, where they dont have a 6.25% sales tax like massachusetts. depending on what you buy, this can make a difference! so, an hour away from our house, there was snow, jeejjj! but it was also really cold. i am still a bit sick, so mostly we just sat in the car and enjoyed the view (we tried not to take the highway).

around here you can find abandoned houses/cars/shops as well. we saw some (but not as many as in mississippi), like this car above. the door was open, and inside was a total deteriorated mess..

Summer weekend

a summer weekend in autumn. this entire weekend (extended until monday as it is columbus day today, a national holiday. but everywhere it seemed business as usual), temperatures were well above 25 degrees celsius! we went to new hampshire to see the colorful autumn leafs... with summer weather. that was funny. we were there last year somewhere in october as well, perhaps even the same weekend, dont remember.. but then it was a little more chilly, and we were the only people up there. the skilift was not working (as you can see here). this time it was quite crowded, and the lift was working... but we walked up and down (i think a little faster than last time; perhaps running 3 miles every now and then is at least a little bit useful).

Yellow car

this was on some field in new hampshire. i think yellow cars make for nice pictures. when i was in california, sylvia rented a car to goto the desert and LA, and that car was also yellow! at the rental company they had all these boring colored cars, but the one sylvia got. i will show you a pic of it some other day...

Mountain angels

on sunday we finally went to mount washington in new hampshire! i had been wanting to go there since a while now, but it is quite far (3 hrs by car). so, we got up early, and arrived down at the mountain around 11.30. it is 6,288 ft, or 1912 m high, the highest peak in this part of the us, and famous for dangerously erratic weather (wikipedia). the weather was perfect, sunny with only a few clouds. i had put on my most sporty outfit and my ugly running shoes. yep, we would walk up that mountain; a 4,4 mile hike! i decided to take tims camera bag taking all the lenses we have, and tim carried a backpack with food, water, extra jackets etc. the first part was fun and all. the path so rocky, but very doable. halfway, or rather, what we thought was halfway, we had lunch. unfortunately, we could not find the place where we supposedly could fill our waterbottle. not so nice, as we would have drank less.... soon after that, the path became more rocky, and considerably steeper. but still, doable. up, up, up we went. getting more and more tired. but the views were beautiful and the weather nice. and we saw so many people, also rather old people, so why wouldnt we be able to do this? at some point, while we thought we were really almost there, we drank all the water! and the path was getting more and more difficult. at some point, there were only rocks, and it was really steep. and i was tired, and we got  past the treeline and we were up so high and the sun was shining and i never did something like this before.... i was getting nasty with tim.... and why did i bring that stupid camera bag?!!

luckily, our fist mountain angel arrived! you can see her here. she was training and had an extra bottle of water, entirely for us!! that was great, and we got some courage again.... then we climbed up rock after rock for another 45 minutes, before we finally reached the summit. we took all the required pictures, including this one. in total, it took us nearly 5.5 hours!! all the while, i was telling tim that i was not going to walk back that path again... however... taking the train or shuttlebus back down would be 45 dollars per person!! we did not even bring that much money! lucky us, once again, we could drive down with a family that visited the mountain for the first time with their kids, 20 years after they had visited it together for the first time.... what would we be doing in 20 years?

so, we had a great day, but certainly it would have been less nice without these people that helped us out! thank you, once again!

more photos of our adventure? here!

American emptiness

this was last week, in new hampshire. it felt like we were driving through a movie set. everything so empty, here and there a house, a lone shop, just like in the movies. only the men with guns were missing.. but we did see a gun shop (i ofcourse thought it was a gum shop, at first..).

Bridge closed

if there is no bridge.... then apparently you need to fly..! 

above you see a hang glider being pulled into the air by a plane.... later the hang glider will be released and eventually will fly/float/whatever back to the ground. so tim went to do some of that. or rather, he was on a field with 2 instructors and had put on such fake wings and was running like crazy and sometimes he would get into the air a little. i just wondered; if we were meant to fly, wouldnt we have just gotten some wings?! but tim liked it a lot.....

here some pictures of him in action! :)

Almost collapsing

i saw this old barn about to collapse, somewhere in new hampshire.... i took so many pictures but all do not show how interesting it looked! perhaps if i could reconstruct a 3d image of all the pictures i took... :) here you can see some more pics.

now im soooo tired! thats because we had to get up real early this morning; tim dragged me to new hampshire at 6.30 in the morning. for his new hobby (nope, not for some sort of nice surprise for me... ;) ).... while he was out playing, i got to walk around and invetigated this barn. perhaps i will show you more about his new hobby tomorrow.. good night!

No glimpse

no glimpse, no look-a-like, nothing.... the closest i came to seeing obama was not today but last monday, at the top of a mountain called "gunstock" that we climbed in the shire (NH).
so, obama was in boston today at the hynes convention center, next to prudential. he was there to campaign for governor deval patrick; on november 2 are the congressional and gubernatorial elections (gubernatorial? i dont know what that is!). according to the newspaper it all started at 12.30. we were there well before that, but there was already an enormous, endless row of people waiting to enter hynes. apparently people had been lining up since 6 this morning!! no way we had a chance, and thus we stood at the entrance of hynes, watching so many people go in, although the row did not seem to get any shorter (7000 were allowed in; quite some people were unlucky). it was soo windy today, and sooo cold!! we waited there quite a long while, and i photographed a lot of overweight police officers, but no obama.... :( when someone finally asked a policeman he said; obama is long inside! they have underground parking here, ya know, sure he doesnt come through the front entrance..! and that was it...