Where people go by names like Smitty, Pugsley and Shep

We arrived in Laconia Wednesday night and ever since the day of crappy weather it’s  been gorgeous so today we took a day trip to White Mountain National Park. We decided to go check out Mt. Washington after hearing that the view was the best in all New Hampshire. Here’s our friend, Andy’s Facebook commentary, which pretty much sums up this little adventure!  “Just took the scariest ride of my life and the best... up Mt. Washington NH. 6000 ft, 50-60 mile winds, 38 degrees at the top and zero visibility for the last mile on a dirt road. It was exhilarating to say the least! Time for a beverage.”  We paid $26 to travel up the mountain. I can’t believe these people allowed us to go on this drive, much less that we paid them to do it! The ranger told us to be careful of the wind gusts, that they were pretty bad today but not bad enough to close the road. So off we went! This is the first sign we saw!

We started out climbing the mountain and with every mile the temperature dropped and the clouds rolled in and visibility dropped to about five feet! Forget the best view in New Hampshire!  By the time we got to the top we were all scared half to death! And we realized we have to turn around now and head back down this mountain now. About every half mile there were signs posted telling us to stay in first gear and take frequent parking breaks to allow our brakes to cool off!!! I kept smelling burning rubber. I’m not sure if it was real or imagined but I plastered myself right next to Doug so I could “help” him navigate us back to base.

This is what it looked like at the top and it was freezing!

Here we are “cooling our brakes”.

Lisa and I hiked off some nervous energy. This felt like a totally different planet.

Here's my view as we head back down the mountain.

And this was our reward, a sticker for our helmets!