I think I might have forgotten that I had a blog for a little while here… My apologies. I believe a recap would be appropriate. Stay with me now, this might take a little bit… {deep breath} and here we go…

June 20th, Meghan’s Bachelorette party, Boston MA. There were quite a few of us wrecking havoc on the little city of Boston. It was an excellent evening filled with raised eyebrows, a dancing street walker and a crazy woman that goes by the name of Higgs, strippers, a lot of hairspray, half naked men, the largest alcoholic beverage we’ve ever feasted our eyes on, dancing, a street violinist and a lot of laughs!! OK… some of that may not be true, but that’s for me to know and you to… well, never find out! 😉 Good times were DEF had by all, right Meg!?!

June 27th, Meghan and John tie the knot, Walpole MA. Well my best friend is married and that can only mean one thing for me… hold off for as long as I possibly can!!! Ha ha ha! Kidding! Meghan and John were married at Blessed Sacrament Church and the reception was held at the Walpole Country Club. It was a beautiful day, despite the downpour that occurred right as everyone was scheduled to arrive at the church. 🙂 We all got through it and the day couldn’t have turned out more perfectly!

July 3rd and 4th, El Quatro de Julio, Humarock/Boston MA. July 3rd Mark, Mike, Janice, Rich and I headed to the annual party held by the Dorrer’s at their beautiful house on the beach, in Humarock. It was a lovely evening filled with fireworks, bonfires, good food, yummy drinks and great people! The evening of the 4th of July Mark, Mike Rich and I headed into Boston to fight the crowds and get glimpse of the incredibly awesome fireworks display that Boston puts on! We sat our keesters down on Storrow Drive and watched in amazement! I’ve been into Boston a few times and I’ll tell ya what, it NEVER gets old!!

July 10th and 11th, Exploring NH. July 10th Mike and I headed north with climbing in mind. I was really stoked to lead something again! We got to our trusty campground near Waterville around 11pm and were surprised at what we saw… No camp sites available!! Never in the two years we’ve sought out a site at this particular campground has it been full! We weren’t sure what we should do, so we headed further down the road with the intention on checking out the sister campground to this last place. Well, SOMEONE told SOMEONE to take a right turn when it was supposed to be a left and we found ourselves driving down this seemingly never ending road. We drove by some cars parked on the side of the street and figured there were free spots along the road, so we found one, set up shop and went to bed. We awoke in the morning to the sound of a truck door slamming shut. I looked out of the screen and there was a ranger putting a ticket on our car. APPARENTLY people pay $20 for these sites that are on the side of a road without a toilet in site! Insanity I tell ya! We were jipped! Anywho, we paid the robbers and continued on our way up to North Conway. As we were driving I was reading through the climbing books trying to decided what I wanted to do. I read a blurb that said that this particular climb required two ropes… “ROPES!!” I said, “I never packed my rope!!!” I looked over at Mike, the disappointment in his face said it all… “Bummer man! What do we do now?”, I said. After trying to come up with some sort of solution that would put us back on the rock we decided to just explore the Kangamangus and all it had to offer. We stopped at Rocky Gorge, which we’ve always driven by and said we would stop there someday, today was that day. We drove further up the road and explored different parts of the Swift River. Then we drove to Cathedral to see if we could bum a rope off of Mike’s friend who was supposed to be climbing up in that area that day. We couldn’t find her so we decided to pick Strawberries. As we were waiting in line to pick Strawberries we started chatting with a guy that worked there. He asked if we had just come off a climb and we told him our story of how I forgot the rope. He felt bad for us and said, “Here, take my rope, I’m not using it!”, we were SOOO grateful and took off to Cathedral to get some climbs in before the sun went down. Well, I pulled out my bag to unload my gear, I unzipped it and my mouth dropped… There, all coiled up in it’s bag, my ROPE!!! OH MAN!! I was pissed!! I forgot that I put it in my bag so that I wouldn’t forget it. I really wonder about myself sometimes. Well we got a few climbs in, returned the rope, and headed off to a remote camp site we took note of during our last trip up north. It was a beautiful site, right on the river! We were all ready to cook our dinner on the open fire and BAM rain starts falling down in buckets!! We quickly retreated to the tent where we cooked some couscous in the vestibule and fell asleep. A failed weekend? Not quite, but definitely filled with a fair share of adventure.

July 18th and 19th, Bike Ride to Truro MA. Early Saturday afternoon Mike, Seth and I fired up the engines and began our ride down to Truro, MA. It was an excellent day for a ride. We only ran into some traffic closer to Truro and we may or may not have hopped into the breakdown lane for a bit… Bad! We arrived in Truro and met up with Kate and her family who had rented condos right on the beach. After visiting the local paahhhkie we jumped into our swimming trunks and played like children in the large waves!! It was a BLAST!! We had seaweed fights and we were taking turns riding the waves in on an alligator float!! Awesomeness! That night Seth, Mike and I went into good ol’ p-town and had ourselves some tasty pizza and some alcoholic beverages! That night Mike and I rolled out the tent on the beach and instead of getting in it, we got on top of it and nestled into our sleeping bags and spent the night under the stars. It was amazing! 🙂 The next morning Seth, Mike and I hopped on our bikes and headed off to the farthest point on the arm and then explored the National Seashore. We arrived back at the condo and spent some time laying on the beach, then we set off for our long journey home. An excellent weekend for sure!

August 1st -3rd Papoose Pond, Waterford ME. August first, we waited, and waited… and waited some more for Bryan to get his butt over Mike’s house!! I don’t know what time our convoy ended up leaving, probably sometime around 2PM. We got up to Waterford around 5pm, I think, and did some shopping at a local Walmart (gotta love Walmart!!) and set up the cabin, I mean, the tent right as night fell. You’ll have to excuse me, I often forgot that we were in a tent because the “tent” was closer in resemblance to a cabin than an actual tent. One might be wondering, “What does she mean it resembled a cabin?”, let me explain. After we set up the monstrosity of a thing I notice Bryan walking back from his car with a small folding table, I asked what it was for, his replay, “The AC”!!! I’m sorry, WHAT??!?! I didn’t quite catch that, did you just say you were setting up an AC in the tent!?!?! Yes, they were and that wasn’t the end of it. A oscillating fan accompanied the AC so we all froze our butts off at night. There were 3, count ’em THREE, air mattresses, a little fake lawn carpet to greet you at the door which was surrounded by some plastic edging to keep the little streams created by the rain at bay. I think it may have been the most luxurious tent I’ve ever seen constructed! Ha ha ha! Other than having to put that thing together, I also got in a couple games of beach volleyball, some excellent food, a few glasses of good bourbon and tasty tequila and a few laughs! I topped off this lovely long weekend with a climb at Cathedral with Mike! An excellent way to end an excellent weekend!

August 8th, Tripyramids, Waterville NH. Five AM, Saturday morning, I’m ready to go! Guess who isn’t?! Marrkkkkkk! Yes, Mark, the same guy who gave me hell the night before saying people are always waiting on me… Yeah… I rest my case. Anywho, Mark and I got up to the trail head pretty early, I want to say maybe 8:30—9. It was a beautiful day for a hike! It’s about 3 miles of flat terrain and then the trail starts climbing, before you know it you find yourself on the north slide, scrambling up big ol’ slabs of rock with excellent views! The summits don’t offer much in the way of views, but the north and south slides offer some beautiful vistas! We ended the hike with a dip in some frigid river water, brrrrrr, and sunned ourselves on the rocks for a little bit. It was a wonderful day!

August 23rd, Mark’s Race, Attitash Mountain NH. Saturday afternoon I met Rich, Janice, Mark and Mike up at the slope side condo they had rented. That evening we all went out to dinner at The Moat in North Conway, it was DELICIOUS!! After dinner we watched Batman Begins and retired to bed. Sunday morning was Mark’s race, we all cheered Mark on as he flew by, coming in 3rd in his division!! We stuck around for the award ceremony and then headed off to see if we could squeeze a game of mini golf in before the rain came. No such luck in North Conway, it was raining cats and dogs. We crossed over the Kanc and had some pizza in Lincoln. It seemed to be a consistent spitting of rain there so we figured we’d chance it and get that mini golf game in and oh boy did we get a game in, it was epic! I am the three holes in one champion while Mike took 1st, Mark took 2nd and Rich and I tied for 3rd (my short game is terrible)!! Ha ha ha! It was a great weekend!