My 30th NH 4,000-footer the week of my 30th birthday! I had performed in a chamber music concert in CT Friday night, and was running on a maximum of 4 hours of sleep when I met Jessica at 4:40am Saturday. We took our standard 3+ hour drive to our mountain of choice, all the while bemoaning our mutual exhaustion and agreeing we had probably made a terrible decision, but were doing it anyway. The clouds rested below the mountains that morning, and the vibrant autumn colors assured us the trip ahead would be worth it. It was! 39 degrees to start. Varied and pleasant terrain. Two new trail friends with whom we could survive three major/mildly frightening brook crossings (each way) and the infamous/mildly frightening slide trail to and from the summit. 18.5 miles and 11.5 hours later, we had taken one unnecessary detour, given my food a short soak in the brook (don't worry, that's what Ziplocs are for), watched Day cross over Night's threshold with about 5 miles still to go (oops), heard and felt the soft pitter-patter of unscheduled weather ("Is that... rain?"), met multiple groups of night-hikers, wondered if shadowy plants were creeping animals, and finally made it back to the parking lot in two inflamed pieces (one Jessica, one Abby). We of course decided to celebrate by listening to the loud pitter-patter of unscheduled car trouble (Jessica: "Is that... my tire?"), then pulled into the Dunkin next to the 7-Eleven where I went to find a car jack, but found a AAA man instead ("Hey, I can fix that for you.") One coffee, a Smart Water, tons of Haribo gummies later, we had driven very carefully the whole way home, and fell asleep in our respective houses instantly. All in all, a great hike!