Excited to announce that we have a new real estate agent here at Alpine Lakes Real Estate. Here is Melissa's story:
I’m excited about this new chapter of my life in a new town, new house, and new career path! I bought a townhouse in North Woodstock in June 2016 after hiking in the White Mountains for many years. My plan was for the townhouse to be a vacation home so I didn’t have the long drives to and from the mountains when hiking and just to have a place to get away from it all. After buying and spending a 2 week vacation at the townhouse, I decided that I can’t just work for vacation anymore and I wanted to live in the moment and enjoy each and every day.
After 6 months of planning, I left my career at the Federal Reserve after 12 years (9 years in Boston and 3 years in New York). I worked on a wide array of projects over my years at the Fed, mostly focusing on internal controls for risk management and capital. The last 8 of those years I commuted from exit 4 in NH to South Station on the Boston Express bus. My commute was easily 2 hours each morning and it is an understatement to say I wasn’t enjoying it. I had the opportunity to travel for work to many cities across the U.S., mostly New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Charlotte. Thankfully I was able to rack up the Marriott reward points, which lead to some nice vacations domestically and internationally, including Italy and Costa Rica. Zip lining at Alpine Adventures in Lincoln, NH is a lot safer than in Costa Rica!
Now a new chapter in life in the White Mountain Region of New Hampshire, where I have spent a lot of time hiking over the past few years. I started hiking the NH 48 4,000 footer mountains in 2009. I was an unlikely hiker and it took me 4 years to complete hiking the 48. I was dragged along by my friend Ellen for the first few hikes and never planned to finish them all like she did. I read the trail descriptions and broke the list into 2 categories – mountains I’ll hike and ones that I won’t. When I reached the half way point I decided I would hike them all. I finished in July 2013 on Mt Washington.
Since completing the first round of the 4,000 footers, I have been working on a second round along with a few other NH hiking lists: 52 With a View, the Belknap range, and the fire towers list. I’m over half way done each of these 4 lists and now I’m making checking them off faster now that I live closer. I love the 52 With a View list, which includes 52 mountains under 4,000 feet that are mostly less difficult and shorter hikes and have great views. Mountains on this list include Mt. Pemigewasset (Indian Head) near Franconia Notch and Mt Potash and Hedgehog down the Kancamagus Highway. The fire tower list is quite interesting as it includes 92 hills/mountains with active, inactive, and proposed fire towers. These hikes range from driving all the way to the fire tower, like Mt Prospect in Lancaster, to long bushwacks (no trail) in the woods for many miles. If the fire tower is inactive then it could still be standing, have some remains, or have nothing left at all. The proposed, well, there is nothing there and never was...
My other passion is animal rescue. I’ve been volunteering at various places for about 4 years. I volunteered at Friends of Manchester Animal Shelter in Manchester, NH for over 3 years. Every Sunday morning I went in for about 3 hours to clean cat cages. I also took a trip out to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah to take tours of the sanctuary and volunteer for two shifts in cat community buildings.
Last spring I had the opportunity to volunteer for the Human Society of the United States on a puppy mill case in Arkansas. I spend the weekend there and never worked so hard in my life feeding dogs, cleaning kennels, setting up an adopt-a-thon, and matching dogs with new families. There were lots of tears of happiness as people left with these dogs that just wanted to be loved so much. Now I’m starting to volunteer at Second Chances Animal Rescue in Littleton, NH. Between real estate, hiking, and animal rescue volunteer work I expect I will have an exciting and rewarding life up in the White Mountain Region. I look forward to working with clients to find them their perfect home in the Lincoln – Woodstock area!
Follow my blog: www.activerain.com/blogs/melissamay78
Like me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/melissalaplumerealtor
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