Great nights sleep. Up somewhat late at 7:00 AM. Raining pretty hard, but we have laundry to do and would Like breakfast. So we put on our rain gear and headed out with good directions from the motel manager.
We started the laundry and walked to breakfast. (Thanks Jane for putting a belt on my rain pants. I can actually keep them up).
We had a wonderful breakfast at the Stairway Cafe, finished the laundry and headed back to the motel for more weather updates and gear sorting.
There was an annoncement in the local paper that Bobby found about a Pastor, Rev. M. G. Martell Spagnolo, at Conway Village Congregational "Brown Church" who's going to sing Broadway tunes this afternoon. If the hurricane doesn't cause a cancelation we'll go. He's performed for George H. W. Bush and the Pope. I hope it's still on. It will bring a little bit of "home" to my trail experience.
Report updates later:
7:00 PM:
The storm is about over and was not an issue for our getting around town.
Buffalo Bobby & I took a taxi to the concert tonight which was about 5 miles away. We arrived just in time to enjoy a pot luck dinner and deserts as well as meet some of the others also there for the concert.
I spoke with the Pastor a bit just before he started. He's a very personable fellow who's obviously loved by his congregation. He was just installed as Pastor of this 125 year old church this afternoon. He was a Catholic priest and has an interesting story that's out on the internet.
He has a fantastic voice and was accompanied by a very accomplished pianist/singer who did a couple of duets with him. He sang songs from a wide range of shows including Camelot, Phantom of the Opera, Pippin, etc. I could have listened to him all night. He not only sang but brought a lot of humor in with introductions to his tunes (kind of like Uncle Joe).
After the show Genet & Bernie, members of the congregation, drove us back into town to our motel. (Others offered us rides as well) Everyone was so welcoming. I certainly stood out in my "best" hiking clothes among the well dressed crowd there tonight.
Other good news: Guardian called us tonight, which was a call we were happy to get, and let us know he arrived home safely Thursday night. He was able to hike off the mountain, catch a bus to Boston and a plane home the same day. He thinks he may have a broken bone in his foot which evidently has been an issue he's hiked with for a few weeks. Hopefully a checkup will confirm what the issue is. Hiking in pain is not something anyone should do. This is supposed to be fun (most of the time).
We have another idle day in store for tomorrow since the trails are still closed. I guess we'll just play tourist and enjoy the town of North Conway.
We haven't taken 2 days off in a row. I'll have to take a long walk tomorrow so I don't lose my trail legs. It will be good to get back to hiking on Tuesday.
Never would have expected a wonderful day like this today as we hiked off the mountain yesterday with visions of a "monster" storm hitting.
That's about all from here until tomorrow.
Love, peace, joy & hope,
Trolley Stop
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| Brown Church - site of the Broadway Tunes Concert |
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| Our Port in the storm |
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| Brown Church of North Conway, NH |
The concert sounded wonderful. I enjoyed reading about Rev. Spagnolo at this link:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.conwaydailysun.com/featured/story/8-26-brown-church-125th-anniversary-celebration. I'm glad you were off the Trail during the storm, and hope it didn't leave the Trail too worse for the wear, as I saw a slideshow of the devastating flooding Irene caused on upstate NY. Be safe! Love Deb.