560 - Castle in the Clouds
It all started at a backwoods ice cream bar in New Hampshire. I was scarfing down a much-needed double cheeseburger with bacon, while a strange waitress took her shot at me.
She couldn’t have been over 30, but there was something off about her that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. She had a cute face, but her features threw me for a loop.
Perhaps it was the lack of symmetry in her cheeks, the intensity of her eyes, or the scar on her neck. But something about her reminded me of a witch straight out of a fairy tale.
I kindly rejected the flirtations, but played my card long enough to get some local recommendations. And as I dipped my final Old Bay french fry into ranch dressing, she began to speak of a long lost place known as Castle in the Clouds.
The moment she spoke the words, her vocal tone changed. A harmonious aura rang through the air as she whispered the words “Castle in the Clouds…”
Suddenly, despite the sag in her milk-stained pants, I felt an intense magnetism for her. It was as if I had been entranced by her soft voice. She talked about the place with a brilliant passion. It was an old New England mansion based on an unusual architecture style known as “ The Arts and Crafts.”
She spoke in high regards about how the house was designed by a man named J. Williams Beal, who aimed to build the house in harmony with nature. The state-of-the-art mansion was built in 1913, and overlooked the entire valley.
She looked deep into my eyes as she spoke. The entire fall valley. For a brief moment, my imagination was transported to a mythic land.
A blender in the backdrop started purring and I snapped out of it.
I left my tip and got out of there. I didn’t like how it made me feel, but I was drawn to this mysterious place for some reason.
Within 30 minutes I pulled into the parking lot, tickets in hand. I was excited for obvious reasons- it’s not everyday you get to visit a castle in peak New England fall.
But the moment I arrived, something felt off. I was the youngest person by at least 30 years in a crowd of 30+ people.
Collectively, we rode a small trolley up to the castle through fall-stricken trees. It was awe-striking, but my gut was still nagging me like a bull in heat. You shouldn’t be here.
We deboarded and were escorted into a small side room where a movie began playing. More old folk. A noxiously mundane voice cracked into the speakers. “The Castle in the Clouds was formed in 1913 by architect…”
I looked around the room. Everyone gazed into the screen, hypnotized by the on-screen history. For a moment I briefly considered the possibility that I’d wandered into some wormhole in another period of time.
The film finally ended, and we were free to roam the grounds.
I strolled around the old mansion, listening to oohhs and ahhs echoing around me. It was well-kept, I’ll give it that. But I just couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable.
Pretentiousness rang through the air, and despite my desire to fall into the lure, I couldn’t. It was built by over 1,000 people, and it felt like an old-money New Englander’s wet dream. There was a haunting vibe, but it was subtle. I couldn’t put my finger on it, and nothing stood out enough for me to warrant a photo.
I stepped outside to take a breather. This is the last time I take advice from an ice cream lady.
Gazing around the backyard, I stopped at the gate and took in the view. Back to nature. Earth’s greatest achievement.
Scanning the valley, my eyes landed on a single house. It was buried amongst hordes of trees, and stood out like a sore thumb:
“Lone Property”
Taken with Sony a7rIV + Sigma 100-400mm f/5-6.3
[ISO 1250 ~ 100mm ~ f/14 ~ 1/400s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
Now we’re talking.
My blood started pumping again. Something told me I need to get back into the those woods. I looked at a map on my phone and found a trail nearby called the Brook Trail. It had 7 waterfalls on it.
Wow. Seven?! That’s almost too good to be true…. Practically unheard of on the east coast.
The ice cream lady's words whispered back into my head. “The entire fall valley…”
Well, maybe this is what she was referring to. After all, this trail was connected to the folklore of the house. It was said the owner’s frequented this pathway.
And it turns out, it’s beauty was true. Over the course of the next two hours, I fell deep into the photography flow state, enraptured by the brook’s seven falls. I came out with these three photos:
“Bulbous”
Taken with Sony a7rIV + Sony 12-24mm f/4 G
[ISO 50 ~ 13mm ~ f/13 ~ 1/3s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
These next two are of another waterfall, but each from slightly different angles:
“Golden Potato”
Taken with Sony a7rIV + Sony 12-24mm f/4 G
[ISO 320 ~ 12mm ~ f/11 ~ 1/3s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
“The Laugh”
Taken with Sony a7rIV + Sony 12-24mm f/4 G
[ISO 160 ~ 32mm ~ f/10 ~ 1/3s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
And this is when disaster struck. My mood in the past couple hours had traversed the entire spectrum of emotions. After exploring this trail, I’d ended on mysteriously happy. Giggly, even. I started whistling aloud as I hopped on rocks across the river.
That’s when I set my tripod in the stream and changed lenses. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched my tripod slowly fall into the water, with my $3,000 camera body still attached.
Red flashed in my brain. I snapped out of my dreamy state in the same way I snapped out of that trance in the ice cream bar.
I pulled it out of the stream as fast as I could, but the whole thing had been submerged for ~5 seconds. I removed the battery, but deep down I knew the thing was gone. No insurance this time, either.
The water in the stream suddenly got cold, and I thought of that horrible ice cream lady. A high pitched laugh echoed in the distance, but when I looked around, nothing was there. Perhaps it was just the waterfall.
I stopped and looked closer at the rocks, feeling like I could see a face emerge in them. Tell me I’m not lying. Look into that photo above on the right hand side of the falls.
I walked back to my car as darkness fell through the forest. My fall journey had come to an abrupt end.
I’m on a mission to explore as much as humanely possible.
Want to see my progress? Check out the Adventure Map.
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