Hanging Out In Vermont

The next morning after one of Kay's overly generous breakfasts, Dan and I went hiking on Mt. Ascutney. We tried a different trail than the one we went on the previous year and ended up at the site of the "Steam Donkey" -- an old steam engine left on the mountainside when the quarries shut down.

Then we hiked up to the summit, sat on a rock and had some snacks. A butterfly decided to make me its home, but this ultimately proved to be an unsustainable relationship.

After three hours on the mountain we descended and dropped by the annual pow-wow in Windsor. In previous years we had always managed to be too busy to drop by, so we decided to make a point of it this year since Kay had always urged us to go. As it turned out, Kay was working the ticket booth which was a good thing since they were only accepting cash, which we didn't have. She let us in on a promise to pay later and we hung out, looked at some crafts and watched some dances.

But we were hungry so we eventually left and drove over to Quechee where we had a nice lunch at Firestone's restaurant. Then we got some ice cream and hiked down to the water at Quechee Gorge.

After all that we decided we would skip the pre-race pasta supper so we bought a few groceries instead and stopped by the Masonic Lodge where the supper was being held just to see if they had any good merchandise for sale. They did! In fact, they had a small sports expo going on, the first time they'd ever done such a thing. Dan had decided not to run, so he bought a commemorative shirt to make up for the finisher's shirt he wouldn't be getting the next day. Then we strolled around Woodstock a bit. It's a cute town, but things sure close early! Even the coffee shop was closed, to our disappointment. So after a long pleasant walk through town we got in the car and went back to the inn. I set out our Seal Cove goat cheese from Maine, our Monhegan House bread, our Island Inn hummus and some cream cheese and jelly. We made tea from Kay's stash and had a very nice evening snack. We tried to stay up for a bit after that, but we were tired and went to bed.