January, 2005, we finally made it out to Rumney, New Hampshire to visit our friends, Rod and Angel, who moved there a few years ago from Leadville, Colorado.  Will and Alison also made the trip--so it was a great reunion for the six of us!  Fortunately for us, the warm, wet weather they had been seeing in New England finally turned cold the week before we arrived and stayed cold the whole time we were there (the warmest temp I saw on my thermometer was 16.8 degrees!).  This gave the innumerable ice climbs in the area a chance to form and fatten up before we hacked them up.

Angela and I flew into Boston a day before Will and Alison would arrive in Manchester.  This gave us some time to drive to Albany, NY and visit our old friend, Nick, and his wife, Wendy.  Nick just earned his masters degree in fine art, and it was great to visit them in Albany before they move on to somewhere else.  We had a lot of fun catching up and checking out their growing collection of art.  We'd recently been amazed by slide show of Nick's work when he was back in Nebraska for the holidays, but his paintings were much more impressive in person.  His style and skill has definitely grown since moving to Albany.

The following day we left Albany and headed across Vermont and New Hampshire to pick up Will and Alison at the Manchester Airport.  We purposely avoided the interstates in order to actually see the countryside.  Angela and I were actually quite impressed with New England!  It is really beautiful (though I still think I would tire of so many trees).  We certainly didn't expect to enjoy it as much as we did.

I think New England really started to grow on us when we stopped for lunch in Keene.  There were actually people walking the streets protesting the inauguration of the president.  That would certainly never happen in Nebraska!

 After our lunch stop we ended up needing to kill a couple of hours before heading into Manchester.  We stopped at Miller State Park to check out Pack Monadnock Mountain.  Our map showed a road to the top, but being winter, the road was closed.  So we threw on our down jackets and headed up the road on foot.  After a 1.3 miles and 800 feet of elevation gain, we bagged our first eastern peak!  It was a nice outing, but a bit spoiled by the numerous communication antennas on the summit.  At any rate it certainly felt good to stretch our legs and breath some fresh air after being in airplanes and cars for two days!

We proceeded to pick Will and Alison up in Manchester and then, after cramming our rented trailblazer with duffels and groceries, headed north to the little village of Rumney.  Rod and Angel had just arrived home before we did, so we were able to share a late meal with them and make plans for the next four days. 

Check out the following photo galleries to see how we kept ourselves busy: