A Wet Wet Weekend

The last weekend before school starts here in town and I decided we would go camping. I thought it would be a nice thing to do with the children before the hustle and bustle of school begins. So since this was a last minute thing, we didn't exactly go camping, but it was the closest it came this year. All the camp sites at a White Lake State Park in Tamworth were taken but my Dad had offered to let us camp in his backyard. He lived in Tamworth as well and was more than happy to let us use his backyard. So we took him up on his offer.

The weekend came and things were not looking up for camping. First, Billy didn't want to go because he had wanted to go to a friends birthday party. Second, Elijah was just plain lazy and hadn't gotten his stuff ready to go. And three, there was a hurricane coming off the Atlantic Coast. So that left Michaela, Bailey and myself off to go camping.

About an hour after we showed up and my Dad's house, it started to rain. I hadn't even set up my tent yet and it was already raining. We gathered inside and talked a bit before we decided to head off to a local indoor pool. The kids had a wonderful time inside but we needed to get back so I can set up the tent. It had stopped raining by then, but not for long. Rain was coming again but not until we fell asleep.

The next morning we were going to head up to Great Hill and go hike to the top to a fire tower. We packed a lunch and headed on up the hill. It was about a 20 minute hike to the top, not very far, but it was a little muggy. At the top of Great Hill was a letterbox called Great Hill Tower. I grabbed the box and headed into the tower to start on our lunch. As I started in on my sandwich, I stood up and started looking around at beautiful view. Problem though. There was a rain shower on the way and it didn't look good. Probably about 10 minutes away, we packed up our lunches, I quickly stamped in the letterbox and took a peek around to see where the rain was now. It was actually moving away from where we were. False alarm! Until I looked a bit to the left and found another area of rain that was surely heading our way. I figured we had about 5 minutes before we had to leave. So we finished most of our lunches and then headed back for the car. It sprinkled a little on the way back but didn't really start raining until we got back to the car. We got inside the car and it poured. Just in time! About a half hour later, it stopped raining and we headed to a place called Monkey Trunks. This place was awesome. You climb as high as 65 feet up in the air play in a rope course not made for those with height issues. Did I mention I have a bit of a height issue? It usually takes me some time to get over this which I was doing, but again it started to rain. No sprinkles here, just down pours. This place doesn't shut down for rain, so we kept on going. by the time we left, we were soaked from head to toe.

So the next day was go home day. I had some clues to find boxes and as well as planting one. I had planted a box but the clues are not available as of the posting of this blog post. The trip home was quite dry. I don't recall it rain at all. Kinda figures, but today was going to be interesting! We first stopped in New Hampton for a box only for it to be missing. We then stopped in Sanbornton to find a box, but the church the box was behind was being repainted so we couldn't go for that box. Finally, we searched for a box in Franklin called Remembering Floyd. This box was located at the Franklin Falls Dam. It was so nice at this dam. I have seen many and they are not as open as this dam is. There are trails and picnic areas as well as a little play area. We had plans to find a 4th box but it was decided we should just be lucky we found 1 box and call it quits. So we did.

We had hoped for a much better weekend but Hurricane Bill did hamper our time a bit. Our tent problems are still an issue for that the leaks we encountered in Virginia continued back at home as well. Maybe this weekend wasn't meant to be, but either way, we still made due and had as much fun as we could of had. Michaela and Bailey didn't seem to mind the rain. They had fun and that really was all that mattered. Besides, this weekend was more for them than me.