Winter in Southern New England

Allow me to set the scene for you. The weather forecasters advise you to stock up on canned goods and road salt. Coworkers head home early (I won't identify them, as it was a few minutes in advance of the federal government's permitted 59 minute early dismissal in advance of adverse weather) to prepare for the "major winter storm" headed our way. We battened down the proverbial hatches and waited. And waited. And then disappointment turned to self-disgust, as another all-but-blizzard manifested as 90 minutes or so of rain followed by near-freezing temperatures. OOH! So cold! How could we be duped again by the meteorologist hucksters? It never gets cold or snows here.

So we took matters into our own hands on MLK weekend, loaded our spankin' new snowshoes (thanks Pop) into the trunk, and headed north. We arrived in Jaffrey Center, New Hampshire late afternoon on Saturday, checked in to an 1830 country inn there, and then took a quick hike up Mount Monadnock. Those 35 or 40 minutes in the quiet, cold dusk, surrounded by silver snow and with the ever present hope of spotting a moose, were so restorative. I could have returned to New Haven then and been quite satisfied.

But I'm glad we didn't. The next morning a cold snap moved through. Hallelujah! Not a real Wisconsin-style cold snap, but better than we've had since living in Connecticut: high of only 18 degrees, and it didn't seem like it ever got quite that warm. We started our day hiking up toward Temple Mountain along the Wapack Trail in southern New Hampshire. It was so cold that we had to keep taking breaks to put our mittens back on as we assembled our snowshoes (well, I did. John didn't take any breaks ... he's impervious to cold).

Shortly after we set off, I started to have to p, which, of course, in the cold weather I decided to ignore until the last possible minute (knowing full well that this was a waste of the energy that my body needed to keep warm). Finally, I could stand it no longer. As any other gal who has had the need to p in the wilderness knows, there's an art to it. You find a good spot where you can easily lean back, thus avoiding splashes on your pants or boots. Often this involves grabbing hold of a sturdy tree or shrub to brace yourself. I had my spot all scoped out, but I was in a bit of a rush at this point. I dropped trou (trow? Not a phrase I usually type) and grabbed hold of my chosen shrub. Alas, an unattached branch was masquerading as a shrub, and my naked ass went tumbling back into the snow. No fun at all. And so. Very. Cold. This situation was made even more awkward by the fact that I was surrounded by hard snow with a slick glaze of ice covering its surface, so I thrashed around for what felt like minutes before I could haul my now beet red tush off the freezing snow.

But even that unfortunate accident could not dampen my enthusiasm for the hike. It was frigid, clear, and quiet ... not a soul on the trail with us, and before long we had sweeping views of the surrounding hills, and at one point could make out the Boston skyline on the horizon. Even the woods dazzled us with their austere peacefulness ... the quiet was interrupted by nary a chipmunk or bird.

When we were chilled through to the bone, we headed back to the car and drove southwest to Northfield, Massachusetts. It was almost enough time to warm up. A short hike up Crag Mountain was similarly snowy and serene, and brought us views of peaks in the Berkshires, Mount Monadnock, and the Green Mountains in Vermont where, from our vantage point, a blizzard appeared to be brewing.

Cold and snow. Yay. We only had to drive a little over two hours to get it. I guess I can quit whining.

So Sorry

An apology to you dedicated visitors to False Reckonings. For awhile there, I prided myself on the pepperminty-freshness of my content. But on December 9, 2007, a sad thing happened which deflated my enthusiasm for blogging. In a tragic accident, my digital camera died, on the eve of its seventh birthday. We were reveling at a Santa-Lucia holiday party, camera in pocket at the ready. I went to the bathroom (admittedly, after 2 or 3 glasses of lovely red wine), and CRASH! the camera hit the tile floor. Oh, if you could have heard that terrible sound. The plastic housing for the batteries cracked, but even when holding them in place with my right hand, the lens beeped pathetically, refusing to emerge ever again.

This last cameraless month made both of us (yes, even the inventor of "I just hate having my picture taken" himself) realize how much we like looking at pictures. And how wonderfully immediate digital picture-taking is. So I'm in the market for a new digital camera ... reading reviews and deciding which features I need. Suggestions welcome. In the meantime, I'll do my best to return to reckoning falsely.