Pleasant Lake-Elkins, New Hampshire

June 18, 2006

Mac, Jimmy, Tina & McHale Cahill





We find ourselves back in New Hampshire, this time at a Lake Cottage on the shore of beautiful Lake Pleasant in Elkins. The beautiful lodgings are courtesy of Tina & Jimmy Cahill whose family owns 8 such cabins along the lake front. Tina was a high school classmate of Kathy’s at Proctor Academy which is located in nearby Andover. Tina works at the ABC preschool in the New London Hospital and Jimmy is a New London firefighter. They have two awesome kids Mac & McHale. We arrived on Thursday, leaving the traffic and hubbub of the Boston for the tranquility and beauty of the Lake Sunapee Region of New Hampshire. We stayed for 3 nights and could easily have stayed longer.





Our cabin is literally on the shore of the lake and we have spent our time hanging out with Tina & her family and exploring the natural beauty of the area. We went hiking and road our bikes around the large lake. During one of our hiking expeditions, we had a near calamity as we hiked through the Esther Currier Wildlife Management area. The area is a series of trails around a marshy lake. We hiked to a couple of different wildlife viewing blinds in hopes of seeing the beavers, sadly they were not out and as we walked over boards laid out to cross a bog, one of the boards gave way and I took a tumble into the deep muck and bog. It wouldn’t have been so bad except I was holding my digital Canon Rebel which was completely submerged. It would have been a great photo of me covered in muck, but the camera was not working. Thankfully after drying out for a day, it seems to be working ok, but it was a scare.




The tranquility of this place is amazing, the gentle waves lapping outside the window with a chorus of frogs or the call of loons being the only noise you hear. The people have been so nice to us. Our car seems out of place for sure around here, but it elicits smiles from people as we drive around. Toll takers and gas station employees seem especially taken by it. Everyone always asks if we painted it ourselves, we did not. Key West artist Rick Worth painted it. As of today we will have traveled through 14 states and just over 4000 miles.