Side Trip To Vermont

My older nephew, Kyle, is working Event Support at the Marlboro Music Festival, a few miles from Brattleboro, Vermont. Joy, Steve, Sean and I loaded up the car and drove there so that I could have a short visit in with him, since he could not come home while I am here. (It's an eight to twelve-hour trip, depending on how much of a hurry you are in.)

We rented a cabin on Gate's Pond, twenty minutes from the campus of Marlboro College. The cabin was a lot nicer than we anticipated, and the general consensus was that none of wanted to leave, once we were there!

These sunny pictures are actually from the day we left. It rained, almost constantly, from the time we got there until the morning we were to leave. To tell you the truth, I enjoyed the rainy time as much as anything I've experienced in a while. We don't get a lot of rainy days in Denver, like that; it's usually sunny or stormy. So, rain and 70 degrees for a high was a nice change for me. (Also, it was over 100 degrees, both days, back in Denver. So, I felt almost like I was getting away something!)

We called Kyle on the landline (no cell service at the cabin), and he arrived soon after. During a brief lull in the rain, he and Sean walked down to the shore of the pond to check things out. That was the last time any of us left the porch, except to get into the car, for the rest of the trip.

The pond looked, at first glance, to be rather scummy. But, when we looked closer, we realized that the green on the surface was actually lily pads. There were plenty of bullfrogs croaking, and we saw a couple of beavers swimming about, and we watched a hawk through the binoculars for a bit, as well.

This is where I spent the majority of our time at the cabin.

On Thursday, Kyle came by and we piled into the car for a tour of the area. We drove though the Marlboro campus, visited Hogback Mountain (Famous 100-Mile View!) and spent some time rattling around in Brattleboro before heading back to cook dinner at the cabin.

Brattleboro is a very quaint town with a lot of historic buildings in the downtown area. I quite enjoyed walking the shops and looking around. On the way out of town, we stopped at Disco Bev (Discount Beverages) to replenish our whiskey supply. Our only bottle had mysteriously drained, the night before...

Sunset, of our second night in the cabin, was quite pretty. Venus peeked through the a gap in the clouds, during a brief break in the rain. The mosquitoes were a bit of a handful, but nothing that a good swing with a baseball bat wouldn't take care of.

As I mentioned, the second morning we were there dawned dry and bright. The pond looked a bit different in the sunny conditions.

But, I still say that we lucked out having the rain. It lent an atmospheric aspect to the place that I really enjoyed.

On the way home, we stopped in Oneonta, New York, at Brook's, a regionally famous BBQ joint. On the premises, there was a picnic area/playground, where Sean and I goofed around a bit.

Me, in the "Ragin' Rooster".

You can't see it in the photo, but there was a slide which went from the tailgate of the Rooster to a sand pit, behind it. Pretty cool for little kids (and not too bad for us big kids, either).

We got home kinda late, on Friday night, unloaded the car and went to bed. All in all, a pretty good 72-hour trip!


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