Monday Oct 1, Scenic 100 mile drive

After raining steadily all night, it finally stopped at 7:30 this morning. At 9:00, we set off on the "Scenic Byway" trip, a 100-mile drive. Our first stop was at Franconia Notch State Park, Flume Gorge & Visitors Centre, where we watched a 20 minute video about how the region evolved. There were some lovely colours to see, however, it is hard to capture the true colour with photos!

  Next stop was at the "Basin", a large pothole in the Pemigewasset River, 30 feet in diameter and 15 feet deep, which had its beginnings some 25,000 years ago as the ice age came to a close.
No swimming allowed!

The next stop held an interesting story. It is named Boise Rock, and according to history, Thomas Boise was sledding through the notch in mid-winter, soon after the first road was built. Overtaken by a fierce snowstorm, he was unable to continue. Realizing he must take drastic action to survive, he killed & skinned his horse. Crawling under the overhang of the rock, he wrapped himself in the hide & spent the night. Men sent out the next day to search for him found Tom still alive but encased in the frozen hide that had to be cut away with axes to release him.

Then it was on to check out the Mount Washington Cog Railway. It was a foggy, drizzly day, so we had no intention of taking the train up the mountain, but we did see some trains coming down. There is one steam engine, but the rest are diesel.
There is an interesting museum there, also.






We passed by the Mount Washington Hotel, which opened in 1902, the Flume & Silver Cascades (waterfalls) and the site of the historic Willey Slide, where the Willey family of seven and 2 hired men died in an 1826 landslide.

We made a stop at the "Covered Bridge Gift shop", just to check it out. It was interesting.











We saw a couple of other covered bridges on the route, then reached the Kancamagus Highway, one of the most spectacular sections of the White Mountains Trail, which would complete our trip.

While stopped at Sugar Hill Overlook, and a rainbow appeared! 











The final stop on the route was ar Pemigewasset Overlook, which was a great display of Fall colours. Again, they don't show their true brilliance in photos!