We were in New Hampshire and Maine this weekend for the first annual Stone Mountain Christmas Show. We’ve headed up to the foothills of the White Mountains for several years now for the ancestor of this event – Carol Noonan’s Christmas Concert at the Little White Church in Eaton, NH.
Usually we stay at the Inn at Crystal Lake, but we didn’t get our reservations in soon enough. Tim and Bobby were kind enough to point out another inn in Chocurua: The Riverbend Inn. The inn is, not surprisingly, at a bend of the Chocurua River. Sadly there wasn’t any snow (indeed we debated opening the windows for the night) – but it was a quiet yet convenient place to stay for a couple of nights.
We drove up Friday night (in the fog) and planned to do some random photography on Saturday before the show. The weather, for a change, cooperated with some dynamic skies. We were headed towards Center Harbor when it started to drizzle and the sun was peeking through the clouds. I instantly remarked that there should be a rainbow behind us. We’re never headed in the right direction. Sure enough, 42 degrees off the antisolar point it was there. Little did we know the show that was to come…
We came upon a nice landscape with a gentle rainbow arcing up from it. It was fading in and out as the weather and wind kept things constantly changing. I wish I had a slightly higher vantage point and I would have been thrilled to get a nice reflection… No such luck.
We headed into Moultonborough to visit a quirky little country store there and when we came out we saw the rainbow behind a tree in the front of the public library. I ran and grabbed my camera, but was gone by the time I came back – only to reappear a few minutes later. Meanwhile, Betsy had scoped out another vantage point by the town building. A few minutes later the sky, sun, and rain created one of the most intense rainbows I’ve ever seen — including the fainter “double rainbow” — which had me scrambling for my 16mm lens.
I’m not sure how many fender-benders this caused, but people were lining up in parking lots and pulling off the road to witness this wonderful show of nature. Betsy and I travelled around the area a bit hoping for some better views, but none were to be found.
The ephemeral nature of rainbows makes them all that more enjoyable to see and they were a quite a challenge to photograph.
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by Dave
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