It was a chilly, but quiet in the campground last night. It didn't get light until after 7! The tall trees block the sun and it has to get high in the sky before it penetrates the campground!
It didn't look like Mom and Dad were up yet so after I finished my breakfast and chores I went for a quick walk around the campground. The river is nice, very skinny and shallow and the beach is rocky, but a good place to wade and tube!
After I got back from my walk, I went over to Mom and Dad's and they were up! Dad and packed and got ready for a hike in Crawford Notch! We headed out about 9:30 and hit traffic in North Conway. We determined that it's the two stoplights at the north end of town that clog things up!
We headed up 302 to Crawford Notch State Park. State parks in NH are different from other states. They are paid for by donation, no taxpayer dollars are spent! As as result they seem more rustic and wild. Crawford Notch is basically just some land and some trails. The trails were well marked, but it's not the big deal that state parks are in other states.
We'd planned a 5 ish mile loop to see Frankenstin Cliff and Arethusa Falls, the highest falls in the state! We headed up the trail toward Frankenstein Cliffs. It was dumb luck that we decided to do the cliffs first and boy were we glad! The trail up was crazy steep! I'm not sure they have heard of switchbacks around here! I was really hoping the down part of our loop would be gentler! Finally though we reached a view!
After the first view we were expecting several more, but one was 0.7 of a mile down a spur trail, which would have added a mile and a half to our hike, so we didn't do that, and the other was marked as being right there, but wasn't obvious so we didn't attempt to bushwhack who knows how far to see it.
After going up for what felt like a very long time, we finally started down! It was much gentler than the way up! On the way down Dad kept trying to test his new shoes - he'd find the steepest, slipperiest rock and walk on it just to see his shoes hold. One such rock was nearly vertical, wet, and had a shiny patch of wet, slimy leaves in the middle. I was surveying how I was getting across it and saw an easy way, then looked up and saw Dad traversing the steepest wettest part. Just as I looked up he hit the wet slimy leaves and went down! He kinda bounced back up and said he'd landed on his pack and wasn't hurt. I told him that's what he gets for showing off.
Soon we made it to the falls! They were very pretty! We stood at the base of the falls and you could look up and see the entire rock face with water cascading down it! We had a snack, sat for a little while, took some pictures and then headed out for the last mile of the hike!
After the hike we scouted another hike we'd found on the map, stopped for ice cream at Trails End Ice Cream in Barttlet, and found, but messed up, a way around the traffic in North Conway.
When we got back to the campground we got Mom and headed out to run some errands. The first stop was Camping World to get some parts for Mom and Dad's hot water heater that isn't working properly. It was at Camping World that Dad's wrist starting hurting. We figured he'd caught himself on it when he fell, even though he doesn't remember it. All though dinner and the rest of the errands his wrist was hurting more and more. We decided that it needed to get checked out so Dad handed me the keys to the car and off we went to the ER.
Since we had just gotten groceries I dropped Mom and Dad off at the hospital and took the food back to the campground, changed into my yoga pants, gathered some stuff we thought we'd need and headed back. The hospital was on the other side of the two stoplights in North Conway so I got extra "sit in traffic" time!
By the time I made it back to the hospital Dad was getting X-rays. I barely had time to catch up on my blogging before the Dr came back and said that his wrist was not broken, likely sprained or bruised. It could also be that he pulled a tendon or something when he hit his elbow. They gave him a splint and some heavy duty pain pills and sent us on our way!
We weren't able to fill the prescription - the two pharmacies close at 9 and it was 9:20! So hopefully Tylenol and ice will control the pain this evening! Hopefully it heals quickly!
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