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Journal for 24 May 2006

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Well, we’re in the Adirondacks. I’m typing away in our tent this beautiful, dark evening. My laptop is the brightest thing at this campsite, followed by the stars. I remember what the sky looked like when we lived up in the woods of Upper Michigan two decades ago, but it’s always nice to have a reminder.

~~~

Today was a pretty good day, a pleasant change for the rolling disaster that was Tuesday. I’m avoiding the word “unmitigated”, as we did eventually get to our hotel, just two hours late and with a different kind of car than the one I reserved. I don’t want to get myself riled up this evening, so more on that clusterfuck (and that stupid thick-necked blonde bitch at Budget) some other time.

Ben & Jerry's factory

Today got off to kind of a slow start. Our interest in Stowe, Vermont pretty much came to an end as soon as we left our hotel this morning. There was nothing wrong with it, per se, it was just better suited for old women wearing clothing from Chico’s than it was two Midwestern 30-somethings. We stopped for the Ben & Jerry’s factory tour on our way to Montperlier, which regrettably was basically the opportunity for ice cream lovers to pay to be advertised to. The time overlooking the factory did give an amusing side show, though, as a worker dropped a bunch of ice cream cartons on the floor, looked up at the observation room, saw me watching him, and then spent a minute and a half trying to get rid of them. First he kicked the cartons, then putting them on top of one of the machines, and then wandered around for 30 seconds trying to find a garbage can. The fact that he didn’t know what to do with them only told me one thing: In most cases, when tourists aren’t watching what the workers are doing, those cartons go off the floor and right back onto the assembly line.

Remember that next time you eat Ben & Jerry’s.

~~~

Vermont State House

Things got better as soon as we got to Montpelier. It’s a cool little town, sort of like a college town without a college (I think). We had a decent lunch, ran into a couple of exceedingly friendly Vermonters, toured the Vermont State Capitol (it’s very small) and generally wandered around a bit. From there we drove across the Green Mountain National Forest, stopping for a brief hike up Lincoln Mountain. It was a cool little hike, but it almost made us late for the last ferry across Lake Champlain to New York. A quick change of route and some aggressive driving got us there just in time for the last trip across. Drama, yes, but of the fun “we’re on vacation” kind. (The race was vaguely reminiscent of Ben and I racing to get out of Olympic National Park before road construction locked us in for the evening.)

After that, we headed down to the Hearthstone Campground, where we are now. It’s a very pretty place to camp. After setting up our tent we wandered around the campgrounds for a while, and then headed to Lake George to grab dinner and catch the finale of American Idol. And on that note, I’m going to turn this blog over to tonight’s guest writer, Lisa:

Even though we’re camping and being rustic, I still couldn’t help wondering…who will be our next American Idol? Surely we could drive into the cute little town we saw up the road, find a bar, grab some dinner and watch the finale?

Well, not quite. Lake George only had one Irish bar with four old guys watching baseball so we took the Interstate down to Glen Falls, and eventually across the Hudson River to South Glen Falls to see if there might be any better prospects. We eventually found a college bar with some kids hanging out front and sure enough on one of the TV screens was showing the finale. Of course they stopped serving dinner right as we walked in and Mark was starving so I knew he wouldn’t have the patience to wait another hour. We got back in the car and drove around to see if there was anything else, even wondering if Pizzaria Uno or the local Olive Garden might be showing it in the bars. At first I thought it would just be fun to catch the ending, but the more challenging it became, the more I wanted to see it. Seeing Mark getting frustrated though, I gave up and figured we could just eat anywhere. At that point however, every restaurant we pulled up to closed the minute we got there until we decided on a local roast beef fast food restaurant called Mr. B’s Best. We grabbed our food and we still had 20 minutes left of the show, so I turned to Mark and said, I know I’m crazy but we’re going back to that college bar! So we sped back through the town and made it to see the last 10 minutes.

Even though I felt a little ridiculous, it was all worth it to see Taylor Hicks win over that yucky Katherine (McFever-my A$%). Anyway, I guess there is a fox outside our tent now, so I better get going. Bye, LM.

So, as Lisa said, we went from watching FOX to seeing a fox. I preferred the latter, but to each their own.

OK, time to go out and look at the beautiful, starry night. The next entry will likely be from Lake Placid. (And no, I’m not talking about the stupid alligator movie.)

More later.

Posted in Journal,Travelog at 10:16 am

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