Thursday August 7, 2003

Storr's Hill Falls Lebanon, NH

It's been raining here like the end of the world. Every day there's a few false rays of sunshine and then clouds amble in, unleash a torrent or three, and rumble on eastward. Whenever I see a break in the rain I slosh out to the pond and dig or move rocks for awhile, until the next downpour drives me back inside to sulk with Zeke and Tink.

This has also meant fewer walks. Yesterday morning I finally decide that Zeke and I both needed a long walk much more than we were worried about being sopped to the skin upon arrival at work. So we hiked the long route, via the Storr's hill trail. The photo is from the nice little waterfall, which you might remember wasn't all that little during Spring thaw (scroll to bottom). This photo was taken standing at the top of the falls.

Now look at the photo a little closer. There, in the vertical center, about one third of the way from the left edge, do you see a couple of white spots? After taking the photo I noticed some of them near my foot and discovered them all over the rock surfaces of the waterfall. They are the final, melted down remnants of candles. All in all I'd guess there were about twenty of them.

Sitting in the dark, damp woods (morning or not) it's not hard to imagine some evil ritual, carried out late at night under the full moon with candles, chanting, and hokey melodrama gleaned from too many movies. On the other hand, with the falls lit up by a couple dozen candles it probably makes for a pretty romantic liason, skinny dipping and all.

Either way, cultists or coitus, it's probably asking too much for them to clean up afterwards...