On our recent trip to Vermont, Kim and I decided to climb a mountain. At first I wanted to climb Mt. Washington because it’s the highest mountain in the Northeast. (So why wouldn’t you climb it,
right?) Then I realized it was a three hour drive away, with a 12 mile hike and although I thought we could handle the hike I knew there was no way I was going to drive three hours with my legs feeling like jelly after coming down the mountain. So we settled for Vermont’s third highest mountain – Camel’s Hump. It was a gorgeous climb, through ever-thinning trees, until we finally broke out above the tree line, scrambled a few hundred feet up some boulders to stand at the top. You could see for miles and miles around. It was gorgeous, with a lot of sweat and a great feeling of accomplishment. And that wasn’t the cool part. Along the way, we took a secondary trail that went past the remains (an upside-down wing) of an old B-24 Liberator fighter jet from World War II. It was eerie to see it on the mountainside with trees just growing through it.

So here we were next to some wreckage in the mountains, and then I remembered a story my grandfather told me about bailing out of a B-17 over Idaho. I started doing some research and sure enough, I can find the records indicating that he bailed out of a plane over Idaho between Salmon and Leadore. What I can’t find is any information about whether that wreckage was ever found. In this case, my grandfather and his crew were able to bail out and parachute to safety (they abandoned the plane because the instruments were out and they couldn’t see anything), so I’m sure they told the authorities where their last known location was. But I wonder if the plane was ever really found. So I’m making plans to round up my brother and head out to Idaho one day and see if we can’t track down that old wreckage. Who knows what we would actually find!

But since I can’t head off on a needle-in-the-haystack search just yet, I’ll settle for building a fire pit and hanging the swing that the girls have been bugging me for. The weather is getting nicer after all, and fall is the time for Fun in the Garden. So get outside, plant some flowers, decorate your porches and make a little Fall happen in Florida.