Happy Birthday, Aaron!
(Yes, that’s Aaron in the Deadpool outfit…)

I spent an absolutely lovely week camping at Algonquin Park in southeastern Ontario. Canada is so incredibly beautiful and Algonquin is one of Ontario’s many highlights.

While I barely scratched the surface of all that there is to see and do, I did manage to take in a few scenic hikes including: Bat Lake, Lookout Trail, Big Pines Trail, Track & Tower Trail, and I enjoyed a refreshing bike ride from the Lake of Two Rivers down to Whitefish Lake.

I enjoyed a brief visit to Wellesley Island, one of the largest of the Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence River. Wellesley Island State Park has a fantastic visitor center complete with 8 miles of easy, well-marked trails and a butterfly house!

Trying NH Oil on Ruby Jean this year. She’s just turned 7 years old and we gotta keep her working and looking her best! Time will tell…

She’s a beaut, Clark. A real beaut!

The Madame Sherri Forest is named after Madame Antoinette Sherri, a Paris-born theatrical costume designer who worked in New York City during the early 1900s. She and her husband built an elaborate French-inspired chateau summer house just outside Keene, NH where they lavishly entertained their New York City friends at parties during the Roaring 1920s.

All that’s left are the stone ruins, but it’s a pilgrimage every good Keener (or Keenite?) must make.

That’s four cord to you and me, Russ. I think it’s safe to say we’ll have enough wood this winter…

I would never call myself a hiker, but for some reason, I decided to push myself a little bit on the trails recently.

Specifically, I headed over to Grafton Notch and hit a couple of the “moderate” loop trails around Old Spec Mountain. Both trails I took joined forces with the Appalachian Trail at certain points.

Table Rock Trail

Table Rock Trail is a 7.2 mile round trip that climbs 1,964 feet to the 3,124 foot summit of Table Rock Mountain. The trail ends 700 feet past the summit with spectacular views of Raven Cliff Falls, the Table Rock Reservoir, and the Caesars Head escarpment.

Eyebrow Loop Trail

The Eyebrow Loop Trail is considered more difficult than Table Rock and rises steeply to a 2,900-foot shelf-overlook on Old Speck Mountain.

These were quite challenging trails for me, so I was glad to have a nice fire and good food at the end of each day.

Now that the Cricket has joined us in Keene, I just had to get away for a quick shakedown in Vermont’s Green Mountains. Beautiful. Relaxing. Very glad we live so close to this…

Did you know you can get brunch at Keene’s local airfield? It even comes with a large wall of pilot photos…