Wednesday, August 19, 2015
It pays to be flexible in this lifestyle!  With a 'still somewhat sore back' and the temps being near 90 today, we opted to drive north to Mt. Washington area.  They say it never gets over 72 degrees there, so it was a no brainer on what to do today.  The cold front is supposed to come through tonight, so we'll do our hiking tomorrow.  We decided to take our chances on going to Bretton Woods, and then drive 6 miles to the Cog Wheel Train Station.  Rather than driving up 6, 288 feet, we decided it would be fun to take the cog wheel train.  We had taken one in Switzerland in 1985 to Rigi Kulm and it was wonderful. They had plenty of openings for riding the train today, and this didn't disappoint us, either. We found out that the one to Mt. Washington was the first ever invented in the world, and it made its first trip in 1869.  We arrived at the top, and had an hour to walk around and see all there was there to see.  We boarded our train back down and felt we did the right thing today.  From there, we went to the Mount Washington Hotel and Resort.  Guess what?  A geo-cache took us there!  We had to find the Gold Room and get some information there on a cache, but to also walk the veranda and take pictures of Mt. Washington.  It did remind us of the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. We found the cache, and headed back to N. Conway.  The drive was beautiful and we could really feel how straight up the mountains were here.  We traversed this little path of a highway between the mountains, and they hovered above us for most of the way.  The roads were in excellent condition, and we are glad to know that, as we will be leaving with the motor home this way.  We stopped at Delaney's for a sandwich on our way back to the campground, and it reminded us of the Delaney's in Madison, WI.  We made good choices today.

This is the cog wheel train that we took to the summit today.  In the first 40 years of service, they were wood-fired boilers, and in 1910 coal was introduced, and in 2008, they started using the biodiesel locomotives.  They still run a coal fired steam engine once a day, for nostalgic reasons. 

We passed the water tank, about halfway up the mountain, that is used to fill the steam engine boiler.

This is a view of the tracks going up Mt. Washington.  It took us close to an hour to make the trip one way, and it's only 3.5 miles. It is one of the steepest tracks in the world, climbing a 37% grade at some points.

The Eagles have landed again!  We are atop Mt. Washington, which is the highest peak in the northeastern United States.  It has the reputation of having the worst weather of any mountain in the world.  They have a weather station on top, and it clocked a wind velocity of 230 mph in April of 1934.

We stopped at the Mount Washington Hotel and Resort after our trip up the mountain, and it is a magnificent building!  We walked through the lobby to the back veranda to see Mount Washington from there.  What a regal setting!  The building is of Spanish Renaissance style, and was built by 250 skilled craftsmen from Italy.  It opened in 1902, and entertained distinguished guests, including Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, Thomas Edison, Babe Ruth and three presidents.....and us!  It was a banner day!