After the sunny warmth of the day before, on Monday June 8 we awoke to a dark morning that soon got even darker. Little Jack and Jill had to wear raincoats for their outdoor excursions to relieve themselves. We walked them along on their harnesses and leashes in the pouring rain, ourselves in raingear too, of course, and mourned the absence of the bright  light and warm sun that we had enjoyed the day before. Jack and Jill aren't too thrilled about having to be out in the rain at any time; this was no exception.

Heavy rain was forecast for the rest of the morning, but it would lift and become lighter toward early afternoon, evidently. Even as it became lighter the chance of thunderstorms would increase, we were also warned. So what to do in the rain? Submerge ourselves in books and stay comfortably ensconced indoors? Not likely.

We decided to go off on the Kancamangus Highway to visit Sabbaday Falls and the Rocky Gorge site beyond the falls. Both spectacularly beautiful destinations and each not far from the other. We drove in the rain encountering massive opaque mists rising from the mountain slopes. And when we were driving through the mountains we also drove into those opaque mists which cut visibility to the core. Still, what we could see from time to time in a break in the atmosphere was lovely to behold, dark overcast and rain notwithstanding.

It's a long enough drive, and we were uncertain what to expect at our destination but thought we saw in the distance some light areas in the sky signifying, we hoped, a lifting of the rain. We decided to drive past Sabbaday Falls and go along to the Swift River where the Rocky Gorge is located, and beyond a mountain lake with a trail that rounds its circumference. We'd done it before in the rain, there's a protective forest canopy; we could only get wet, after all.

Previous visits to the Rocky Gorge were nothing like this. There was only one vehicle in the parking lot besides ours, where usually there are buses loaded with tourists; all was deserted in the rain. We dressed our two little poodles in heavier raincoats and set off with them to view the beautiful landscape that the river presents tumbled with immense boulders, the river rumbling, thundering and splashing in a series of waterfalls over the boulders. A bridge over the river takes one to the opposite side beyond which is the lake, and of course trails into the now-sodden forest.

And that is precisely where we headed, the rain now more of an inconvenience than a misery, since it was no longer heavy and once into the forest it seemed fairly negligible. Jack and Jill, interested in the new scents encountered everywhere didn't seem to mind the wetness at all. The colours of the orange pine needles sifted on the forest floor were magnified in brightness as were the greens of the conifers and the deciduous trees. Despite the overcast gloom of the forest, some light from above seems to pierce the canopy, and shine down into the lake which we glimpsed through the trees from time to time, as we proceeded. It seems to us, at times like this, like a magical place.