One of Bilbo’s favorite pass times is rock climbing. He began climbing during his college years at Coopers Rock State Forest, very near WVU. Since then he has built up an impressive collection of gear, guides, and know-how. I on the other hand am very green in the area of climbing and need much encouragement to preserver. To put it into perspective: something that takes me 20 minutes to climb will require a minute of less of his effort. Because of his love for rock climbing, Bilbo chose Rumney, NH as a must-do on our New England trip. We spent two days there with climbing as the main focus. Our morning and afternoon hours were spent at Jimmy Cliff, Waimea Wall, and a few other areas whose names we can’t remember; all of which are part of the White Mountain National Forest. This is often deemed the best sport climbing area in New England. Bilbo felt that it lived up to its reputation as it offered many unique and difficult climbs, though their number is dwarfed by the number of climbs in the southern WV and eastern KY region. The rock was geologically formed from sediment, called schist, and it climbs a lot like sandstone. Every now and then there were large deposits of quartzite crystal, which afforded a neat visual and tactile experience.
Our Rumney evenings and nights were spent at D-Acres, an educational homestead where we pitched our tent. The community house, which you see below, is home to a mixture of full-time staff and interns who work on and fully rely upon the land. The mission of D-Acres is to provided education regarding homesteading and environmental responsibility, while living in a working model.
One evening, we took a cooking class in the outdoor kitchen with one of the full-time workers. She showed us around the grounds, told us about how they support themselves with the self-sustaining model, and was just fun to talk to. The grounds are covered by gardens of fruit, veggies, herbs, and flowers that provide the mainstays of the residents’ diet. They also supply the workers and guests with beautiful scenery.
Along with the gardens, there are animals on the farm to provide milk, eggs, and meats; however, the residents of D-Acres are largely herbivorous. A pair of oxen are kept to assist with the physical labor of the operation, too.
Another focus of D-Acres is decreasing the oh-so talked about carbon footprint. They have compost toilets (a hole in the ground into which you poop and then add a cup of woodchips, no peeing allowed in the toilets), a wood burning stove, and a solar heated shower. The picture below is of the shower. It’s the wooden structure in the background, and yes it’s outside. There was something freeing about showering out of doors with the sun shining down on you—like you are “one with nature”. Don’t worry, though, there were four walls to provide privacy.
Our last night at D-Acres was that of the midnight showing for…
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2!
Bilbo and I are super nerds who love the Harry Potter series. If you remember from earlier blogs, we had been listening to all of the audio books to pass the time in the car and prepare for the release of the final movie. What you don’t know is that we have costumes!
There we are as Snape and Luna for our 2010 Halloween party. Every year we throw a themed Halloween party for all of our friends and this past year’s theme was Harry Potter. Unfortunately, we didn’t think to pack these lovely get-ups for the opening of HP and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. It didn’t matter in the end, though. We ended up falling asleep in our tent while waiting for 11:00pm to come around—that’s when we had planned to leave the campsite for the theater. Lame, yes, but in our defense we had spent the whole day hiking and rock climbing.
When we woke up the next morning, a little defeated, we left for VT and one last stop before leaving New England. Our destination, once again found in “1000 Places to See before you Die”, was Molly Stark State Park in Wilmington, VT. We’ll get to more about Molly Stark in a bit. First, our Harry Potter experience! We drove to a neighboring town, Brattleboro, where the nearest movie theater was located. Like the rest of VT, Brattleboro was picturesque and pristine. It had a hippy/outdoorsie/artsy vibe with cute little shops and old, re-modeled buildings. The theater, Latchis Movie Theater, was located in the Latchis Hotel. The theater looked to have been a play house at one time, as it retained the structure and accessories associated with such. If you have been a WVU student, you are undoubtedly familiar with the Warner Theater. Well, the Latchis is what the the Warner could be if someone fixed it up. The ceiling was painted like the night sky with astronomy signs, the side stages remained with Greco-Roman design, a chandelier hung overhead, and local art decorated the corridor coming into the auditorium.
Our viewing experience was awesome! The movie was all I could have asked for and the audience was full of nerds who were very into the movie and broke out into cheers and applause with each Death Eater’s demise. We left the Latchis with post-Potter euphoria and headed back to the campground for some sleep.
Molly Stark State Park’s claim to fame is the fire tower trail. It is a short, light hike (0.5-1 mile, I can’t remember) to a fire tower. If you climb to the top, you can see three states at once.
This hike was our last adventure in New England and below is the “panoramic” view for you to enjoy! I couldn’t tell you which state is where, but I can tell you that the states in question are VT, MA, NH. It was a nice summary of our time up north.
With mixed feelings we said goodbye to New England. We loved New England, but two months away from home had us excited to get back to our families and our kitties. So, a quick review of our favorites thus far:
Favorite place is Acadia.
Favorite state is Vermont.
Favorite food is Legal Seafood.
Favorite brew is Atlantic Brewing Co.
Favorite climb is Waimea.
Favorite quote, “Are G-strings legal?” (from one Ocracoke park ranger to another)
