Glen, NH - Singing in the Rain

An administrative day here in the RV. A day in the park. An R&R day. You know, one of those days when Nancy pays bills and writes e-mails, Gary does laundry and whatever maintenance he wants. (I let him have his choice in this - aren’t I generous?) But, then, of course, we want to get our 4 miles in so I found what someone listed as one of the nicest 1 mile hikes in New Hampshire: a wooded trail next to a babbling brook in the NH forest. What can go wrong? Since it’s by a brook, it must be level - just what we’re looking for today. And, it’s only 1 mile, in a mile and out a mile - about what we’re ready for today. The trail is named the Table Mountain Trail. Hmmm - what do I not understand about the word ‘mountain?’ A lot, I guess.
Sounds like a plan, right? We check the weather, oops, a bit of rain coming in, we’d better get over there right away.
Well, you know the plot of this story, before I even write it. Sure enough, we get to the trail, lace up, grab the dry bag and we’re off. We didn’t take our poles - heck, it’s only a mile in and a mile out next to a brook. We met two 65+ yr old guys just finishing the trail, one had at least 25 caribiners hooked onto his belt loop. We asked about poles: one said no, the other said he never hiked without them. Oh, well.
Funny, this trail is about 50’ above the babbling brook. And, we’re still climbing. Every new view shows the trail heading further up. But, what can you not like about a trail that looks like this?

Well, we did see the babbling brook. And, I’ll have to admit that this trail was a nice one. We keep climbing, through some loose stone and a bit of mud from yesterday’s showers. We looked over our shoulders - hmmm - black clouds, moving in. Just a little bit further. We hit the bare rock which we climbed up. More bare rock.

Still the trail curls upward. Not what I expected. But, we’re gonna finish it.
CRACK. OMG - that was the loudest crack of thunder I’ve heard in a while. We rotated 180 degrees and began our downward descent. Gotta get off this bare rock. Without poles through the muddy sections and the loose stone - I have developed my new technique which is an old technique - the snowplow stance down the hill.
CRACK. More thunder - right over our heads.
And it begins to sprinkle lightly. The canopy covers us and we remain mostly dry. It rains harder and we begin to get wet. We’re hurrying down the trail. The rain is pelting down. We’ve got our iPhone, watches, keys and billfolds in our dry bag but we’re getting really wet. (Luckily my shoes are waterproof - and what does waterproof mean when it’s raining like this?)
I hope we can get over those little streams we crossed on the way up. Is the rain filling them up? Will we still find the boulders to jump to or will they be covered? Will we need to wade through them?
Ah, the car. We open the back hatch cover, huddle under it and get out the towels we keep in the car - for just this kind of emergency. We empty the bag, get into the car and take this shot. Two wet chickens.

I don’t think that this is what people mean when the talk about a wet t-shirt.
Hey, it’s all part of the adventure? We got in 5 miles, climbed 1268’ and enjoyed the woodsy trail.
I took this picture after we got down of the radar on our iPhone. That blue dot is us and you can see all the rain that covered us as we were hiking.

A couple, desperate to conceive a child, went to their priest and asked him to pray for them. "I'm going on a sabbatical to Rome," he replied, "and while I'm there, I'll light a candle for you."
When the priest returned three years later, he went to the couple's house and found the wife pregnant, busily attending to two sets of twins. Elated, the priest asked her where her husband was so that he could congratulate him.
"He's gone to Rome, to blow that candle out" came the harried reply.