Woods Wind Wander

Today was the first full day of our second trip to the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  I have been dreaming of returning since the moment we left this summer.  I knew my husband had a week off of work in October and I thought it would be a wonderful time to go back.  Once we decided to make reservations, I started buying and stashing non-perishable grocery items, preparing and freezing meals, heck, I even had the boys' and my suitcase packed a week in advance. Our trip north went well, although we took an hour longer (11 hours as opposed to 10 this summer) and it was raining the entire drive.  Luck would have it that when we drove in to Waterville Valley, the rain stopped, the sun came out and we were welcomed back with a beautiful rainbow.  I took it as a good omen. Once we arrived, we unpacked the car and went for a 5 mile walk along the Mad River, ate dinner, and went to bed dreaming of more adventures to come.  The following morning we all woke up ea...

The highly underrated view from Jennings Peak After driving slightly over an hour to see our dear friends, our youngest's BFF's family, we decided to try to stay close by and do a somewhat low-key hike.  We did a bit of Internet searching and settled on Drakes Brook which was a very short drive from where we were staying.  When you are online looking for hikes (let's say on a site like AllTrails), it can be very different when you arrive to the actual trailhead and are trying to figure out how the person writing the post strung together the "Moderate 5 mile loop."  My husband likes to go online and (try to) figure out the route in advance.  I do think it is good to have something of an idea of what certain trails are like.  But sometimes I can't figure out what they are talking about and just like to string a hike together on the fly. We arrived at Drakes Brook and saw this sign.   Drakes Brook trail is an out and back (Sandwich Mountain Trail would be...