Rain, rain go away... to Texas (but skip the Mississippi River area)!

We've been in New Hampshire for barely over a week now. The weather when we drove in last Thursday wasn't terrible - thin clouds with an occasional light drizzle and a bit of sun here and there. Nice, mild temperatures in the 70's; cooling off at night, but not getting too cold - an extra blanket while you slept would suffice without really having to turn on the heat.

It was a welcome change for us, coming up from Texas where we've been in drought conditions for a few months already and days were creeping into the 90's with high humidity, the air conditioner becoming a sad necessity and open windows becoming a thing of the past. It was downright beautiful here!

Friday was even more lovely, a bit more sun early in the day, with the clouds getting thicker and darker later on, and actual rain falling instead of just the light mist the clouds had been producing. The trees were barely past the "just budded" phase, and few leaves had actually uncurled. Some trees weren't even sporting a touch of the new-leaf green yet. Spring flowers bloomed everywhere or were getting ready to.

Daffodils and tuplis

White-flowering tree

Forsythia bush

The weekend brought more rain, enough for there to be flood warnings for the area we are in. The weather got not only wetter but also colder and it became necessary for us to turn on the furnace in the RV. You can see some of the changes the rain has brought - these pictures were taken 1 week apart.

Leaves unfurling

The brook behind Ed's parent's house

To become more familiar with packing and unpacking and setting up the RV, we actually left Ed's parent's yard in Glen for a few days to stay at a campground. We've had a lot of luck with KOAs so we decided to stay over at the Chocorua KOA, aka the Chocorua Camping Village.

The site we were given overlooked Moore's Pond. We had electricity, water, sewage and cable, which wasn't totally necessary since we could even receive tv signals via the antenna (a step up from the yard, where the antenna picked up zero channels). The KOA had superb recreation ammenities, too - a fenced-in dog park area with an agility course, canoes and kayaks to rent, fairly extensive nature trails, and was close-by to one of my favorite mountains in the area, Mt. Chocorua.

Moore's Pond, as seen from our RV

While we would have been pleased with a few days of nice rain... we're over it (as I'm sure the rest of New England is, too). The front stalled and the weather stuck around. We didn't get to really enjoy any of the recreational activities at the campground. It poured - really poured - almost the entire weekend and into Tuesday. It's another Friday and still no sun. Not particularly any forecasted anytime soon, either.

We did try out the dog park (in the rain when it wasn't quite pouring) and watched as Lu did her best to please us and slip-slided up and down the majority of the agility course (we skipped the see-saw, she is terrified of it). The rest of the time, we spent hunkered down in the chilly RV.

Yes, chilly RV. I mentioned above that we turned on the furnace... Which is all well and fine until the thermostat becomes tempermental. This is what we had to do to get the heat to come on:

Despite our troubles and the weather, I quite enjoyed our stay at the campground for one primary reason... Loons. I would fall asleep at night listening to their haunting wails and wake up in the morning to the same. I caught sight of a pair close to the shoreline at Chocorua Lake, too.

I have always been a birder, but never had much experience with loons until a boyfriend in college indicated he liked them. A loon center had just opened in a nearby town, and I excitedly made him take us there during a visit, only for it to result in much disappointment as we saw and heard no loons. It wasn't until after I graduated college that I actually heard loons for the first time, while working for a small computer company out of the boss's house in Center Harbor. The house overlooked a pond and we worked the night shift, so we frequently heard loons yodel throughout the summer.

The sounds birds make at night captivate and haunt me and hold a dear place in my heart. Play me the hoots of the great horned owls that live behind our house or the echoes of a loon wailing across the water, and I'll fall asleep happy. No matter how much it's been raining.