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| Hosted by The Book Date |
Life
August 10?? How did that happen? We were on vacation in New Hampshire and Vermont for the past 11 days, but it feels like we were gone longer. We brought our camper and escaped the heat, staying in some beautiful state parks and enjoying lots of time outdoors. Here's a quick recap (I'll be posting a video of the trip in the next few days):
We spent our first night at one of our favorite campgrounds, North-South Lake in the Catskills, on a lakefront site. We lucked out and got a couple of hours between rain storms when we arrived. The lakes were very high, and nearby rivers and waterfalls were all wild and roaring!
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| We've never seen this waterfall so wild before! |
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| The lake was lapping at the dock! |
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| Cozy in our camper! |
Our first stop in New Hampshire was Bear Brook State Park in southern, NH, known as the Lakes Region. It was a beautiful park, but a very noisy campground! We were there over the weekend, along with a group of about 20 college-aged kids near us, so there was a lot of screaming, singing, loud music, and other noise. But, we were camped just steps away from Beaver Pond, so we very much enjoyed the peace and quiet on the pond with our kayaks, especially at sunset one evening. We also took a short hike one day on Bear Brook Trail.
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| Lots of lily pads on Beaver Pond! |
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| If you're wondering if it's about to rain on us, yes, it did! |
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| Best part of camping! |
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| Chipmunk |
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| Frog on the trail |
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| Lots of these purple flowers in the lakes, too. |
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| Nothing more peaceful than sunset while on the water! |
Our next stop was White Lake State Park, just south of the White Mountains. There, we enjoyed a very large, very private, quiet campsite!  The lake was beautiful, and we spotted our first loon of the trip! | |||
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| Beautiful little beach for launching kayaks |
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| Loon diving under next to my husband's kayak! |
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| Loon head popping up. |
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| Beautiful day out on the water! |
We got about 24 hours of rain, so we escaped to the nearby town of North Conway, for a movie and lunch.
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| Delicious lunch at Tuckerman Brewing Co. |
And we finished our time at White Lake SP with a gorgeous orange sunset over the lake, with the mountains in the distance.
Looking ahead to the rest of the week, I could see the temperatures were going up to the mid-to-high 80's. Since none of the parks had electric hook-ups for a/c, I cancelled our last southern NH reservation, and we escaped to the mountains of northern VT! First, we had to stop at a family favorite destination, Polly's Pancake Parlor--our sons were so jealous!
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| Polly's Pancake Parlor in Sugar Hill, NH - a favorite! |
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| My husband with the full stack |
We stayed at New Discovery State Park in Groton State Forest in Vermont, another beautiful place (and another peaceful campground!). Luckily, there were some very easy, short hikes I could manage, including from a parking area to the peak of Owl's Head Mountain, with beautiful views, and a short walk to Kettle Pond. Our last day in VT, we kayaked on Ricker Pond.
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| At the peak of Owl's Head Mountain - Kettle Pond in the distance |
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| Beautiful views of surrounding mountains and lakes |
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| Best part of camping! |
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| Kettle Pond up close! We heard a loon out on the lake. |
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| Sunset at Osgood Pond in our campground. |
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| Kayaking on Ricker Pond |
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| Peaceful and beautiful on the water! |
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| Lots of dragonflies! |
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| And a few turtles (and one loon but he was too quick for a photo) |
The ride home was a little rough as we drove south because the a/c in our truck isn't working. It seems fine when you start out, but then it gradually dies down. It was 90 here in Delaware when we returned, so yesterday was a long, sweaty drive! We're glad to be home, and we had a wonderful, relaxing trip. Just what we needed!
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I scheduled videos for while I was away:
The Philosophy of Reading Tag - What is YOUR philosophy of reading? A few thought-provoking questions.
My First 2 Months on Rapamycin/Sirolimus - Did It Help to Reduce Crashes? - In this chronic illness vlog, I bring viewers along as I try a new treatment for ME/CFS and long-COVID that has promising research results.
Booktube Questions Nobody Asked ... Until Now! - A fun tag video with some unique questions about books!
Do You Reread? - A discussion abut the books you choose to reread ... or not.
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While camping, we finished watching Dexter: Original Sin, the prequel to Dexter (link to my review), which we watched in full over several years while camping! (We had it all on DVDs from our son and watch on an old laptop.) The prequel was wonderful for fans of the show, and the casting was absolutely perfect. The young version of every character looked like and had the mannerisms of all the original characters. It was fun to see where all the details in Dexter's later life originated when he was young: not just his life as a serial killer who only kills bad guys but also his job in the crime lab at Miami PD and why family is so important to him. It was a very satisfying single season show that left me wanting to rewatch Dexter again!
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I finished reading The Toll by Neal Schusterman, book 3 in his Arc of a Scythe trilogy (I read the first two books for previous Big Book Summers). My family and I have loved everything Schusterman writes, and this series is no exception. Hundreds of years from now, Earth is a Utopian society, managed by an AI called the Thunderhead, where pain, sorrow, despair, and even death have been eradicated. To maintain ideal population levels, certain people become Scythes, whose role is to kill people, randomly and approximately according to mortal-age death rates and actuarial data. But of course, things go wrong, and the society is not as perfect as it seems. In book 1, Scythe (links to my reviews), two teenagers, Rowan and Citra, are chosen to train as Scythes. In book 2, Thunderhead, we see things begin to go awry, but the Thunderhead isn't allowed to interfere in the affairs of Scythes. In this third and final book, corruption among the Scythes, under the rule of a power-hungry man, comes to a head, as the heroes (Rowan, Citra, and a young man named Greyson) work covertly to save humanity. It's a unique dystopian world, but its issues, like power-hungry leaders, prejudices and biases, and religious extremism, often seem familiar to those of our current world. I loved this fast-paced, suspenseful novel as much as I loved the previous two, and the ending was very satisfying.
Next, while camping in the woods, I started reading ... The God of the Woods by Liz Moore. Perfect, right? This creepy character-driven mystery is set at a summer camp in the Adirondacks, where two children (siblings) went missing, in 1961 and in 1975. The narrative moves back and forth between the timelines and between various characters (a camp counselor, the best friend of the girl who goes missing in 1975, the mother of the two kids, a female investigator assigned to the 1975 case, and more). In this way, the story is gradually, intricately woven together. The characters and the storyline are very compelling, and the mystery is suspenseful. I keep suspecting various characters; it's definitely keeping me guessing! I'm enjoying it very much, and the wilderness setting was the perfect backdrop for reading while camping.
When we're traveling, I like to choose an audio book set where we're going. This time I chose Past Tense by Lee Child, book 23 in his Jack Reacher thriller series. My husband has read every book in the series, and I haven't read any of them in print, but we both enjoy the audios, and they're great travel picks, since Reacher is always on the move. In this book, he is hitchhiking his way through New Hampshire (on his way from Maine to San Diego!), when he noticed the small town that his father said he grew up in. Reacher knows nothing about his past or his family, beyond the few things (like this town) that his father mentioned, so he stops in the town to see if he can find out where his father lived and grew up. As you might suspect, it's not an easy task, and there are plenty of secrets and surprises. Meanwhile, 20 miles from town, something sinister is going on. A young couple from Canada stops at an isolated roadside motel when their old car breaks down. Again, there are lots of secrets and convoluted happenings, as the couple are in greater and greater danger. Eventually, of course, Reacher will cross paths with them. We both really enjoyed this one. I liked the additional intrigue of Reacher finally learning something about his family, and it was certainly a very original plot! We listened to it several nights around the campfire (partly set in a heavily wooded part of NH) and finished it as we pulled into our driveway yesterday!
My husband, Ken, finished reading Dead Man's Walk by Larry McMurtry (my review at the link - scroll down), the first prequel to Lonesome Dove (and first book in the 4-book series), about how Gus and Woodrow got their start in the Texas Rangers, as very young 19-year-olds. He loved it, as I did in June! He is now reading a book I gave him for Father's Day, All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker. I'd heard great things about this literary thriller last year during Big Book Summer, and my husband is loving it and reading it in record time.
I'm guessing our older son, 31, is still reading Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson, book 5 of his famed Stormlight Archive series, and loving it! He said he loves the way that Sanderson weaves connections among all of his Cosmere books. This one is 1344 pages long, so he said he'll read a "short" book next, under 600 pages! It's always Big Book Summer for him!
Our daughter-in-law-to-be is reading book 3, Dust, by Hugh Howey, book three in his Silo series that began with Wool, after finishing Shift, book two (my reviews at the links). I'm happy she's enjoying this series as much as we did, and she was excited to hear there's an excellent TV adaptation (we just started season 3).
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