Time to stretch the eyes

I've been spending a lot of time hunched over the dining room table painting away. It's great but exhausting and rough on the ol' eyeballs. So on Saturday, after dropping off some donated school supplies from C's mom to a dear teacher friend of mine, Curtis and I headed up to one of my most treasured childhood memory places.

Mount Blue Job (which apparently other people call "Blue Job Mountain") is in Farmington/Strafford in Southern NH and it's an easy 1,357 foot elevation hike. I climbed this little mountain (which seemed HUGE at the time) with my brother and dad and various family friends over the years.





Curtis and I had actually planned to hike Blue on the day before our wedding with my brother and his girlfriend but scheduling and nerves and a funny tummy prevented that visit. So instead of right before our wedding, we went up right before our honeymoon (we leave in 2 weeks)!





The trail of roots and sandy, mica-flecked soil brought me right back to our childhood hikes - though I think we went up a different trail. The top was just as I remembered it (but maybe the fire tower was a little LESS rickety). Perfect.






(Click to see bigger!)

It was a spectacular day weather-wise and a fun and much-needed outing. Curtis was happy to see a place I have been talking about since we met and I was so happy to show him. Eyes have been sufficiently stretched (to all edges of NH in fact). Now, back to painting!


A little sweaty but pretty pleased. :)

xo
Sarah

If you are going to go hike Blue Job - and I suggest you do!: Make sure you continue on past the first summit with the fire tower to get to 'Little Blue Job' which is another 20-30 min or so. You'll hike down to a little lake and then up again to a big rocky tree-less plateau with an amazing view (where most of my photos above were taken).