Just the other day, I again realized what an incredible place the New London/Lake Sunapee area is to live.  Even in the dregs of the ugliest month of the year (November), you can find something new to do.  Two friends invited me to go hiking on one of the Greenway trails.  It had been a long time since we had caught up with each other, but I really had things I should be doing.  Anyway, I decided to go.  I tried to back out at the last minute because it was cloudy, and I will sometimes find any excuse to cancel.   After all, I'm not a hiker. At 9:30 we were parking the car off of Route 114 in Springfield.  It took us 15 minutes to drive from the projected end of the hike to the start, so now I was very leery.   I wasn't sure we would make it back before dark.  Thank goodness my good friend was prepared for all disasters.  She even had mole skin for my blisters.  It took us 1 hour to find the fourth trail marker.  We had been out for an entire hour and I could still see the car through the trees!  This wasn't a good sign.  We decided it was safe to go on since there are several bail outs along the way.  An hour into the hike--I was with good friends having great conversation, catching up on their families and telling funny stories in the most beautiful area I had seen in a long time.  Open fields, views of Little Sunapee, Lake Sunapee, distant mountains and most of all, deep woods, with no sound but the leaves rustling under our feet and our voices.  Every once in a while an animal would warn its friends of our arrival.  We heard a fox.  We saw a hawk take off from just a few yards away.  A pheasant almost scared me to death when it took off just feet from us.  We didn't make it the entire 8 miles, but we were only short by 3.  We bailed out at Twin Lake Villa by taking the Kidder Brook trail down.  We called my friend’s husband and he picked us up and drove us to the car.  It was a very memorable day.  The hike was 5 hours long.  We were all smiling.  Sharon LaVigne, GRI