Kancamangus Highway

Ever heard of the Kanc? Well unless you live in New England, you probably haven’t. I hadn’t anyway, not until last year when we went zip lining up in the White Mountains. The Kanc is highway 112 in-between Lincoln and Conway New Hampshire. It is a beautiful road, winding between mountains, small rivers and waterfalls, and in the fall it turns into a riot of color. People travel from all over the world to see the fall in New England, and Columbus Day weekend is usually the peak fall color. We decided that we wanted to see it too!

We picked Sunday, hoping that the traffic between the White Mountains and Boston wouldn’t be too bad in the middle of the weekend and for the most part that was true, until we got to Lincoln. All through Lincoln the traffic was bumper to bumper and we were afraid it would be that way the entire time but once we got out of town it wasn’t too bad.

There was one strange thing, however. There were a lot of people, and I mean A LOT, of Indian ethnicity (Indian Indians, not Native Americans). We had no idea why, but it seemed pretty strange. They weren’t all together either, just a lot of different families. It either was some Indian cultural tradition or some holiday. I even tried to look up Indian holidays online but couldn’t find anything significant. Diwali isn’t until November this year so that’s not it. Its a mystery!

Our plan was to meet our friends Carol and Joe at Sabbaday Falls. They live in the White Mountains, outside of Conway. They have a couple of Westies too, and we could take all of our doggies for a little hike together.

Sabbaday Falls was crowded of course. We parked along the road, and pulled into our parking spot at exactly the same time as Carol and Joe pulled into theirs! First we had a little picnic in the woods because it wouldn’t do to have Lynn be hungry and cranky while we were hiking. Then we headed up the trail to the falls.

 Five happy little Westies marching along pretty much stopped traffic all along the trail. Little kids, grownups, everyone wanted to stop, take their picture, pet them, ask about them. The dogs all took the attention in stride. Harper really really wanted to GO! But there were too many people to let her off leash so she basically pulled Lee up and down the trail. Cosmo had to mark everything in sight, and Heather of course was right underfoot the entire time. Ruby walked very nicely, and Pia did too, except she doesn’t do stairs and has very very short legs, so periodically Princess Pia had to be carried by Joe.

After viewing the falls and hiking back to the car we followed Carol and Joe back to their house. They live waaayyyy out in the country. Their house and land are beautiful and I can see why they chose to live where they did, 35 years ago!

Pia is such a funny little dog. When we went upstairs Carol carried her up with us but we forgot and left her up there when we came back down. She stood at the top of the stairs and barked demandingly, “Come get me!”  Same thing when she was sitting on the couch with Lee and we all went in the other room, “Hey! Come back!” She cracks me up.

Can We Have a Treat? Please???

We went for another hike, this time from their house to the small ski resort nearby. One of their neighbors has a very large black lab named Thompson. Thompson came along on our hike, which was fine with us, but we kept Cosmo well away from him while he was on a leash. Thompson is just a big galumphing friendly dog, and we sure didn’t want him getting bitten on the nose! Harper wanted to play with him, but when he came up to Heather she SNARLED right in his face! I’ve never heard such a fierce noise out of that gentle little dog! We came out at the top of the mountain and sat on the lift chairs and enjoyed the view while the dogs ran around happily. Once they were off leash our dogs paid Thompson no mind. Its funny how leashes can bring out strange behavior in dogs.

 




Before too long it was time to say goodbye to Carol and Joe and make our way home. It was fun going up north and seeing the leaves. We were “peepers” for the day. We wouldn’t mind doing it again next year, but maybe it would be better to try it in the middle of the week and avoid the hordes.