Fall is here and soon the frost will be on the pumpkin. New England is a great place to be in the fall. It wasn't such a great place to be this summer. Actually, although we had a lot of fun on our vacation at the cabin, the weather did not really cooperate. This is a picture of the cabin we rented for a week in northern New Hampshire, 15 miles from the Canadian border. Because of the weather, we didn't even get to go out on a boat that week. The sun was out part of every day, but then rain would come through, and on the two days it was sunny all day, it was too windy for a boat ride. First Connecticut lake is deep and not the place to be when a squall comes through. The man who rents the boats was not eager for anyone to be out there. Certainly not city folks like us. So, we spent the week reading, fly fishing on the streams neaarby, fishing off the dock, knitting, and going for rides to see the moose who are plentiful along that stretch of the road between us and Canada.
Moose watching is big around there, and every evening we take to the road and drive 2 miles an hour to see where the moose are that night. It takes sharp eyes and patience. They are always there, but not in the same place. We saw little ones, big burly ones with huge antlers, and teenagers with little developing antlers. Every evening we saw at least two, and sometimes up to six. Some were big and healthy and some looked rather skinny. But, all moose are rather funny looking. They are gangly, slow moving, and very appealing. Everyone likes them and some evenings there would be a slow moving caravan of moose watchers on the road. The ice cream place at our hosts lodge is called Moose Alley Ice Cream. The specialty is moose tracks, which is caramel, vanilla and big chunks of chocolate. Yummy.
We had lots of fun fly fishing. The mosquitos were happy to see us out there too. Successful fly fishing to me is when I don't get my line caught in the tree behind me. We never caught a fish in the streams we fished, but I caught a large lake salmon, and two "suckers" off the dock. Since they were all going to be thrown back, the suckers were just as much fun to catch as the lake salmon, jumping and zinging the line as they fought. You have to be better equiped than we were to really catch serious fish in that lake. We didn't try very hard. The locals said it was too cold and the fish never came to the surface. Whatever. It was a great vacation in a cozy cabin, and the moose watching couldn't be beat.
