fff|ggg|mount_ascutney/P1040467|Peter cooks a hot dog|ggg|fff

On Saturday, Becky and I traveled up to Claremont, NH for ***Jeremy and Angela|http://thebiggspicture.org/***’s ***volleyball party|http://thebiggspicture.org/2005/08/volleyball-party.html***. We had a very nice time, and along with Jeremy and Angela we got to see Jeremy’s parents, along with our fellow ***Gordon|http://www.gordon.edu/*** alum ***Elizabeth|http://blog.myspace.com/elizgraz*** and her friend ***Jenelle|http://blog.myspace.com/jenelleb***. Volleyball was just part of a day that also included horseshoes, jai alai, bocce, and (later that afternoon back at The Biggses) catching up on back episodes of ***The Shield|http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286486/***. Angela did an excellent job as the hostess, getting the party all set up and all of the food prepared. The food was delicious, of course. 🙂

Saturday evening, Becky and I went camping at ***Mount Ascutney State Park|http://www.vtstateparks.com/htm/ascutney.cfm*** in Windsor, VT. Jeremy and Angela came along with us and helped set up the tent and get the campfire going. We enjoyed having them over to our “pad” that night.

The activity of the day for Sunday was hiking. Mount Ascutney has four trails which criscross the mountain and lead to the summit. We chose the Windsor Trail, which turned out to be one of the shorter trails, but also the steepest. It was just up, up, up all the way! Becky and I were very exhausted by the time we got to the top, and we had gone through a one liter Nalgene and a 20 oz bottle of water before we even reached the top. Yikes! We had hoped that there would be some source of water at the top of the mountain, perhaps at the parking lot just below the summit, but alas, it was not to be.

***Corey|http://corey.prwdot.org/*** was also at Mount Ascutney so that he could practice for the ***Mount Washington Hill Climb|http://www.tinmtn.org/hillclimb/index.cfm*** bicycling event. We started hiking at the same time that he headed over to bike up the mountain. Unfortunately, his chain broke before he had gotten very far, so he came back down and drove around the area for a while looking for a bike shop. He couldn’t find one, so he drove back to where our car was parked and ran up the mountain to find us! Becky and I were astounded when Corey bounded up the trail to meet us before we reached the top! That guy is in some killer shape, I tell you. As an aside, after the hike, he headed back to Boston to play in a league championship soccer game! Yikes!

Anyway, it was nice to have Corey with us for the end of the hike. The summit of Mount Ascutney has a metal observation tower and a number of radio antennas, as well as a lookout point from which hang gliders launch. There were some very nice views of the surrounding area, even with the heavy fog.

Unfortunately, after reaching the summit, a rainstorm started pounding us… luckily, we were able to bum a ride off of a nice but crazy lady at the parking lot near the top of the mountain. She took us back to our cars where we were finally able to get some water inside us, dry off the water outside us, and eat lunch. Even though we didn’t hike down the mountain, we still felt accomplished having taken such a tough trail.

You can see photos of Saturday’s party ***here|http://gallery.prwdot.org/j_and_a_party***, and photos from our hiking adventure ***here|http://gallery.prwdot.org/mount_ascutney***.