An efficient trip to the mountains

I'm very lucky that I have a wise and patient wife. I seem bent on combining my business trips with our pleasure trips. We had a nice stay at a favorite bed & breakfast, got to see the beautiful White Mountains of New Hampshire, ate some great food, and had a fabulous day of cross-country skiing.  All good.

But I had a short list of things I wanted to photograph. Oh, and two retail stores to check out. Also, a couple owners to meet. Somehow, I managed to do all that while keeping my wife entertained. The retail part of the trip went just fine. I've been scouting many brick-and-mortar stores throughout New Hampshire that might be interested in selling my Hidden New Hampshire calendar for 2016. Every time I wander more than a few miles from my home, I've got my list of stores handy so I can kill at least two birds with one chunk of Granite.

So far, the responses I've gotten have mostly been very positive. It's been fun meeting business owners like me who love New Hampshire and want to celebrate it. Thankfully, I'm now confident enough showing my photographs to them that I can ask them to carry my product. Some are really good photographers themselves, which is usually helpful, but sometimes intimidating.

Of course, any trip to the White Mountains would be a waste if I didn't have my camera ready to capture some cool, lesser-known spots. It was beautiful out the day we wandered around, so getting a good view of Cathedral Ledge wasn't too hard. The ice-climbers made me nervous, though. Props!

Diana's Baths is a fabulous place to wander around the other three seasons of the year, but Winter at the Baths was rather magical, too. Not just for the frozen waterfalls and pools, but the sounds of mountain streams rushing under them all, too.

Traveling the nearly-famous Kancamagus Highway was less successful, though. Many of the scenic overlooks and pull-offs are not maintained between Fall and Spring and were therefore inaccessible. We did stop at one view, where I plopped down in the snow for a good angle of the mountains to the north, but the light was high and flat, and the experience of being there wasn't going to translate well into a 2-D image. Granted, the other tourists had a better time than I did, seeing a lunatic laying on a windy, snow-covered hillside to take a few pictures.

There's lots to see and explore on "The Kanc" in Winter, but my wife and I were not keen on spending a lot of time there. We had forgotten our snowshoes, and needed to travel a while longer to find much-needed lunches. So I was hoping serendipity would strike the few times we hopped out of the car. It did not.

Still, it was a great trip from all accounts. I should endeavor to be so efficient for the rest of my trips into the far corners of this great state.