Well, today was eventful…
Having picked our car up from the airport and grabbed a sat nav from Target we set off towards New Hampshire.
We made it slightly less than 100 miles before I got pulled over for speeding (It was a 55 limit on an interstate and I was only doing about 60!). Â Anyway, once the officer realised it was a rental car (and checked that it wasn’t stolen) he just waved us on our way with a warning. I’ve now learnt how to use the cruise control and am trying to get in the habit of leaving it bang on the limit.
With that little drama over we reached Mount Washington 
and took the cog railway to the summit. Firstly a few facts about Mount Washington and it’s cog railway.
- The mountain is the tallest point in New England at 6,288 ft
- It still holds the world record for the highest recorded wind speed on land at 231mph
- It has the worlds first ever cog railway and it’s also the worlds 2nd steepest.
- The summit has been home to a weather observation station
for over 100 years.
The weather was beautiful at the base of the mountain and the guide told us we were very lucky to get such a clear day. Unfortunately, when we got to about 4000 feet it started to rain and the breaksman said there was a big storm coming in.
As we climbed towards the summit the mountain around us was shrouded by fog rolling over it and the rain was coming down hard. We could see lightning striking the peaks around us and the observation deck at the summit. We ran into the observation deck as quickly as we could and could barely see 10 feet out of the window. I had decided a coat was unnecessary and was still wearing a T-shirt!
Some kids let out a scream as the building we were in was struck by lightning and we mooched around the museum and gift shop for an hour before the train arrived to take us back down. We ran towards the train again in heavy rain and as we stepped on another lightning bolt hit the observation deck behind us.
The descent took about half an hour, still in thick fog and I was kind of glad to get back down again but it had been fun. We may not have got the perfect clear panoramic photos we had wanted from the top but it was definitely an experience.
We then headed out of new Hampshire and into Vermont for an incredible drive through the countryside. I wish we could have taken some photos of the sunset as we drove through Vermont but it was raining and we couldn’t really pull over.
We’re staying in a lovely hotel in a small town called Stowe tonight and tomorrow we’re off to the Ben and Jerry’s factory and into Canada.