Humping the Camel...Day 2
Written about September 11, 2009 on September 16, 2009
The morning came all too soon. I hadn't gotten very much sleep, but surprisingly, I woke up and was fairly clear headed. I lay resting for about a half hour as Daphne had woken up at 5 AM and proceeded to shower and refresh for the day. Darroch mumbled that he was good to go with 5 minutes notice and I heard him roll over downstairs in his bunk and presumably went back to sleep.
As soon as the bathroom was free I went in and had a shower as well. I had to prod Jenn a bit to get up as she was groaning and mumbling with her eyes half closed. It was quite amusing as Jenn is normally the morning person, sickeningly chipper and bouncing and I'm usually the one trying to burrow back under the covers and growling. Turn around is fair play so I pounced on her jostling and making a pest of myself and gave her a wee version of my own wake up song. I really should have taken a picture of her sprawled in bed all bleary eyed repeating "BLaRGH!" as I poked her into motion.
Once everyone was up, dressed and semi awake, we piled into the Fearsmobile and headed off to the border of Vermont. I claimed shotgun again, as I tend to get seasick fairly quickly in the back of cars. I'm not sure if it was the route we took, but we managed to avoid all Timmies and neglected to get any sort of refreshment or food into our systems. By the time we got to the border we were more than a little punchy and as we sat in line Darroch had us in stitches as he proclaimed as if speaking to the border gaurd "Pardon the immodesty of my wives, their burqas are in the back covering up the AK47s". I turned to Darroch and warned him one day he'd be saying "Where am I? And why am I in this handbasket?".
The border grilling was rather interesting. The gaurd was a woman and she was rather no nonsense and gruff as I'm sure she's trained to be. She started out asking citizenship and we all replied Canadian as we handed over our passports. I think the next question was did we have any alcohol or tobacco to which we replied no. She asked where we were going to which Darroch replied Montpellier. Then she asked what the nature of our visit was and we variously said hiking, fishing and visiting with friends. She leaned in close and asked in a loud stern voice "Do you have BAIT?" (which turned out to be a rather ironic question we discovered later in the trip) to which we replied we were getting it there. She then asked who the friends were and here Darroch turned to me and asked me what Tom's last name was. I think I goldfished a bit and came up with O'Malley, as Tom's LJ moniker is Kilted_O'Malley. She asked how long we were staying, which was answered "til Sunday". She then asked if we were all returning together to which we replied yes. Then she started in on asking what our proffessions were. Darroch said Lawyer, I said Project Manager, Jenn replied she worked with special needs children (I can't recall exactly what she said), and then Daphne replied "RCMP dispatcher". The guard's attitude did a complete 180 and she sort of threw up her hands and said "Well then, have a good weekend, and ladies, don't ditch him (pointing at Darroch) down there!". We all laughed and were on our way.
It wasn't long before we saw the first mountains come into view in the distance.
Unfed and uncaffeinated as we were, we were still facinated by the change of scenery.
Jenn - bleary eyed but loving the view
Daphne - also bleary eyed but smiling nonetheless (not bad for a shot over my shoulder eh?)
Darroch driving - Really dude, it's helpful if you drive with your eyes open ;)
It would seem in Vermont it's important to maintain the vista and so, as we drove, there were no signs to indicate where gas or refreshment might be had. The trip continued apace and we got more and more out of sorts as our bloodsugar collectively took a nosedive. We found and information and rest station which proved to have FREE COFFEE!!! Well, not free, there was a sign requesting one offer a donation in exchange. We puttered there for a short while, stretching our legs and caffeinating. There were various displays of the homegrown industry and products available in Vermont from hand creams to jewellery. Jenn found and advertisement for a factory tour of Ben & Jerry's and we all agreed we'd do that on the way back. We piled back in the car having rejected the packaged "foods" that likely contained High Fructose Corn Syrup, in hopes of finding someplace further down the road where we could break our fast.
The scenery is not unlike that of heading up into the muskokas and beyond...
Except for the rolling mountains in the distance.
I was rather fascinated by the fact that the clouds were low enough and the hills and mountains high enough that
they touched!
We arrived at Tom and Raven's around 8:30 or 9. We were greeted in the driveway by a lovely view of the house which was surrounded by gorgeous sunflowers.
I think we more or less woke the household. Tom and Raven were still in their housecoats and everyone was sleepy and somewhat groggy.
Jeff with the best "OMFG what the hell time is it" look on his face *Ever*.
Tom and Raven's kitty however was much more bright eyed and bush tailed
I'm unsure of what they did the night before, but waking up was evidently a bit of a chore.
Ali and Raven - Raven is preparing to go pick produce at her community garden plot.
The yard surrounding the house was lovely, full of flowers and veggies and herbs.
Lavetara thuringiaca
Comfrey - Symphytum sp
It was decided that we would pile in the car and go get sustainence. And as happened over the course of the weekend, it's hard to get a large group of folks herded in the same direction. Tom gave some of the knitting/crocheting type folk some yard he had sitting around and of course, silliness ensued.
BOOBIES!
We decided to go to the Riverrun Cafe and we had a lovely repast. I had French toast with some really amazing ham. Jenn and Ali ate oatmeal with nuts and fruit and maple syrup. Being Vermont, all the restaurants pretty much serve only Vermont maple syrup!
Vermont is pretty hard core about their cross walks. Just a little reminder I think of what happens if you don't cross where you're told to cross.
Tom giving me the look. "Too much blood in my caffeine system!"
Tom has wonderfully expressive hands. They speak volumes about his creativity and how hard he works. I've never met anyone more in motion than Tom, he always seemed to be doing something!
Another form of expression - The back of Tom and Raven's Truck
Once we were all fed and suitably caffeinated, we went back to the house and walked into town. Several of us wanted to go fishing and licenses needed to be obtained. I had brought a couple of fishing poles but I had no reel and I was unable to locate my little pack of fishing tackle before I left. We went to a place downtown called Miller Sports. I lamented that I didn't get a discount. Because you know...all Millers are related! The downtown area while busy was lovely and homey. Lots of little shops and holy heck, at least one or two bookstores per block! Next time I go down, I want to go with enough time to shop and bookhunt. I also want to be able to take enough time to take more photos. I took a lot of pictures, but there were so many photo opportunities of which I never took advantage. Like photographing the down town of Montpellier.
Tom and Darroch helped me pick out a reel (it wasn't that hard, the place only had two of one model), and some lures to go on my 13 year old Ugly Stick which I had yet to use. With our licenses secured, with the dire warning to have the form on our person, even in the river, we headed back to the house. On the way, we stopped in at a convenience store to buy some worms. Remember how the border gaurd had ominously asked if we had any BAIT???? Well. The clerk went to the back to get me a dozen night crawlers and wouldn't you know, the night crawlers were CANADIAN!! The mind boggles!
Darroch, Jeff, Daphne, Tom and I were going to fish and Jenn and Ali came along for the ride.
Me just before I started fishing - I got me a druidin' staff! (Photo by Ali)
Jenn did some rock hounding and when she was done with that, Jenn and Ali went off to explore the local cemetary. And I fished for the first time in over a decade. How I love fishing! We were fishing for rainbow trout in the Winooski River. The river actually passes about 100 yards from Tom and Raven's front door, but we drove off a ways to find a less trafficked location and found it under a train bridge. The water was low enough that I could wade out to a dry island in the middle and toss the lure into the faster running water. Tom wasn't too far away, and I could see Jeff and Darroch fly fishing up the river and Daphne casting off the shore near them. Fishing is a lovely hypnotic passtime; standing in the water letting the current wash around my legs, the sound of the line whizzing out of the reel, the excitement each time the lure is cast that maybe *this* time the fish will bite. I went back to shore for a short break to talk with Ali and Jenn when they came back from their graveyard exploration.
We did a little recursive photography - Jenn getting ready to take a picture of me taking her picture
Ali smile as Jenn takes her photo
A caterpillar resting on some GoldenRod
Eventually we went upstream to join the others. Raven was there getting confirmation on a grocery list of items for the assemblage of dinner.
Darroch caught one wee rainbow trout, not big enough to keep. Ahh...fishermen in kilts!
Tom vigilent as always, keeping an eye on everyone else. What's not to love about men in kilts?
They very nearly had to haul me out of the river, reluctant as I was to stop fishing. But the light was fading and we had to go, if for no other reason that we were all starting to get hungry once again.
Me fishing - Image by Darroch
Back at the house dinner preparation was underway.
An excellently fine repast was prepared under the direction of Raven and consumed over the ensuing hours.
There was grilled mushrooms with herbs and cheese, toasted herb bagette on which to transfer the mushrooms from plate to mouth.
Image by Ali
Then one of THE most delicious ministrone soups I've ever tasted. Hunger is really the best seasoning, but this soup really was very tasty. I need to get the recipe.
Stringy cheese is so inelligant but boy howdy is it tasty!
Folk settled in to some libation and by the time the main course was served
mieszko and thinkingoutlaw arrived after a long journey. This rounded out the compliment of folks for Camel humping. At some point toast_himself arrived, I think it was sometimes on Friday, but I'm not sure!
We all settled in to talking and much consumption of alcohol. I personally only had one Woodchuck Granny Smith apple cider, but it was
enough to get me feeling warm and toasty.
There was lots of bantering and getting to know folks and the atmosphere was so relaxing. Tom and Raven's home is wonderfully warm and welcoming.
At some point we started to drift off to bed as we had a mountain to climb the next day! Despite the threat of an early morning, Ali joined Jenn and I for some girl talk and much giggling ensued. At one point we were so sure that Raven and Tom, sleeping in the ajoining room seperated only by a stained glass door, was going to come in, knock our heads together and turf us out in the yard. We were so punchy and excited everything seemed to be funny and we were laughing hysterically. We did eventually calm down and dozed a bit and around dawn Ali wandered off to her own bed and Jenn and I dropped off to a deeper sleep.
And thus ended Day Two!
The morning came all too soon. I hadn't gotten very much sleep, but surprisingly, I woke up and was fairly clear headed. I lay resting for about a half hour as Daphne had woken up at 5 AM and proceeded to shower and refresh for the day. Darroch mumbled that he was good to go with 5 minutes notice and I heard him roll over downstairs in his bunk and presumably went back to sleep.
As soon as the bathroom was free I went in and had a shower as well. I had to prod Jenn a bit to get up as she was groaning and mumbling with her eyes half closed. It was quite amusing as Jenn is normally the morning person, sickeningly chipper and bouncing and I'm usually the one trying to burrow back under the covers and growling. Turn around is fair play so I pounced on her jostling and making a pest of myself and gave her a wee version of my own wake up song. I really should have taken a picture of her sprawled in bed all bleary eyed repeating "BLaRGH!" as I poked her into motion.
Once everyone was up, dressed and semi awake, we piled into the Fearsmobile and headed off to the border of Vermont. I claimed shotgun again, as I tend to get seasick fairly quickly in the back of cars. I'm not sure if it was the route we took, but we managed to avoid all Timmies and neglected to get any sort of refreshment or food into our systems. By the time we got to the border we were more than a little punchy and as we sat in line Darroch had us in stitches as he proclaimed as if speaking to the border gaurd "Pardon the immodesty of my wives, their burqas are in the back covering up the AK47s". I turned to Darroch and warned him one day he'd be saying "Where am I? And why am I in this handbasket?".
The border grilling was rather interesting. The gaurd was a woman and she was rather no nonsense and gruff as I'm sure she's trained to be. She started out asking citizenship and we all replied Canadian as we handed over our passports. I think the next question was did we have any alcohol or tobacco to which we replied no. She asked where we were going to which Darroch replied Montpellier. Then she asked what the nature of our visit was and we variously said hiking, fishing and visiting with friends. She leaned in close and asked in a loud stern voice "Do you have BAIT?" (which turned out to be a rather ironic question we discovered later in the trip) to which we replied we were getting it there. She then asked who the friends were and here Darroch turned to me and asked me what Tom's last name was. I think I goldfished a bit and came up with O'Malley, as Tom's LJ moniker is Kilted_O'Malley. She asked how long we were staying, which was answered "til Sunday". She then asked if we were all returning together to which we replied yes. Then she started in on asking what our proffessions were. Darroch said Lawyer, I said Project Manager, Jenn replied she worked with special needs children (I can't recall exactly what she said), and then Daphne replied "RCMP dispatcher". The guard's attitude did a complete 180 and she sort of threw up her hands and said "Well then, have a good weekend, and ladies, don't ditch him (pointing at Darroch) down there!". We all laughed and were on our way.
It wasn't long before we saw the first mountains come into view in the distance.
Unfed and uncaffeinated as we were, we were still facinated by the change of scenery.
Jenn - bleary eyed but loving the view
Daphne - also bleary eyed but smiling nonetheless (not bad for a shot over my shoulder eh?)
Darroch driving - Really dude, it's helpful if you drive with your eyes open ;)
It would seem in Vermont it's important to maintain the vista and so, as we drove, there were no signs to indicate where gas or refreshment might be had. The trip continued apace and we got more and more out of sorts as our bloodsugar collectively took a nosedive. We found and information and rest station which proved to have FREE COFFEE!!! Well, not free, there was a sign requesting one offer a donation in exchange. We puttered there for a short while, stretching our legs and caffeinating. There were various displays of the homegrown industry and products available in Vermont from hand creams to jewellery. Jenn found and advertisement for a factory tour of Ben & Jerry's and we all agreed we'd do that on the way back. We piled back in the car having rejected the packaged "foods" that likely contained High Fructose Corn Syrup, in hopes of finding someplace further down the road where we could break our fast.
The scenery is not unlike that of heading up into the muskokas and beyond...
Except for the rolling mountains in the distance.
I was rather fascinated by the fact that the clouds were low enough and the hills and mountains high enough that
they touched!
We arrived at Tom and Raven's around 8:30 or 9. We were greeted in the driveway by a lovely view of the house which was surrounded by gorgeous sunflowers.
I think we more or less woke the household. Tom and Raven were still in their housecoats and everyone was sleepy and somewhat groggy.
Jeff with the best "OMFG what the hell time is it" look on his face *Ever*.
Tom and Raven's kitty however was much more bright eyed and bush tailed
I'm unsure of what they did the night before, but waking up was evidently a bit of a chore.
Ali and Raven - Raven is preparing to go pick produce at her community garden plot.
The yard surrounding the house was lovely, full of flowers and veggies and herbs.
Lavetara thuringiaca
Comfrey - Symphytum sp
It was decided that we would pile in the car and go get sustainence. And as happened over the course of the weekend, it's hard to get a large group of folks herded in the same direction. Tom gave some of the knitting/crocheting type folk some yard he had sitting around and of course, silliness ensued.
BOOBIES!
We decided to go to the Riverrun Cafe and we had a lovely repast. I had French toast with some really amazing ham. Jenn and Ali ate oatmeal with nuts and fruit and maple syrup. Being Vermont, all the restaurants pretty much serve only Vermont maple syrup!
Vermont is pretty hard core about their cross walks. Just a little reminder I think of what happens if you don't cross where you're told to cross.
Tom giving me the look. "Too much blood in my caffeine system!"
Tom has wonderfully expressive hands. They speak volumes about his creativity and how hard he works. I've never met anyone more in motion than Tom, he always seemed to be doing something!
Another form of expression - The back of Tom and Raven's Truck
Once we were all fed and suitably caffeinated, we went back to the house and walked into town. Several of us wanted to go fishing and licenses needed to be obtained. I had brought a couple of fishing poles but I had no reel and I was unable to locate my little pack of fishing tackle before I left. We went to a place downtown called Miller Sports. I lamented that I didn't get a discount. Because you know...all Millers are related! The downtown area while busy was lovely and homey. Lots of little shops and holy heck, at least one or two bookstores per block! Next time I go down, I want to go with enough time to shop and bookhunt. I also want to be able to take enough time to take more photos. I took a lot of pictures, but there were so many photo opportunities of which I never took advantage. Like photographing the down town of Montpellier.
Tom and Darroch helped me pick out a reel (it wasn't that hard, the place only had two of one model), and some lures to go on my 13 year old Ugly Stick which I had yet to use. With our licenses secured, with the dire warning to have the form on our person, even in the river, we headed back to the house. On the way, we stopped in at a convenience store to buy some worms. Remember how the border gaurd had ominously asked if we had any BAIT???? Well. The clerk went to the back to get me a dozen night crawlers and wouldn't you know, the night crawlers were CANADIAN!! The mind boggles!
Darroch, Jeff, Daphne, Tom and I were going to fish and Jenn and Ali came along for the ride.
Me just before I started fishing - I got me a druidin' staff! (Photo by Ali)
Jenn did some rock hounding and when she was done with that, Jenn and Ali went off to explore the local cemetary. And I fished for the first time in over a decade. How I love fishing! We were fishing for rainbow trout in the Winooski River. The river actually passes about 100 yards from Tom and Raven's front door, but we drove off a ways to find a less trafficked location and found it under a train bridge. The water was low enough that I could wade out to a dry island in the middle and toss the lure into the faster running water. Tom wasn't too far away, and I could see Jeff and Darroch fly fishing up the river and Daphne casting off the shore near them. Fishing is a lovely hypnotic passtime; standing in the water letting the current wash around my legs, the sound of the line whizzing out of the reel, the excitement each time the lure is cast that maybe *this* time the fish will bite. I went back to shore for a short break to talk with Ali and Jenn when they came back from their graveyard exploration.
We did a little recursive photography - Jenn getting ready to take a picture of me taking her picture
Ali smile as Jenn takes her photo
A caterpillar resting on some GoldenRod
Eventually we went upstream to join the others. Raven was there getting confirmation on a grocery list of items for the assemblage of dinner.
Darroch caught one wee rainbow trout, not big enough to keep. Ahh...fishermen in kilts!
Tom vigilent as always, keeping an eye on everyone else. What's not to love about men in kilts?
They very nearly had to haul me out of the river, reluctant as I was to stop fishing. But the light was fading and we had to go, if for no other reason that we were all starting to get hungry once again.
Me fishing - Image by Darroch
Back at the house dinner preparation was underway.
An excellently fine repast was prepared under the direction of Raven and consumed over the ensuing hours.
There was grilled mushrooms with herbs and cheese, toasted herb bagette on which to transfer the mushrooms from plate to mouth.
Image by Ali
Then one of THE most delicious ministrone soups I've ever tasted. Hunger is really the best seasoning, but this soup really was very tasty. I need to get the recipe.
Stringy cheese is so inelligant but boy howdy is it tasty!
Folk settled in to some libation and by the time the main course was served
mieszko and thinkingoutlaw arrived after a long journey. This rounded out the compliment of folks for Camel humping. At some point toast_himself arrived, I think it was sometimes on Friday, but I'm not sure!
We all settled in to talking and much consumption of alcohol. I personally only had one Woodchuck Granny Smith apple cider, but it was
enough to get me feeling warm and toasty.
There was lots of bantering and getting to know folks and the atmosphere was so relaxing. Tom and Raven's home is wonderfully warm and welcoming.
At some point we started to drift off to bed as we had a mountain to climb the next day! Despite the threat of an early morning, Ali joined Jenn and I for some girl talk and much giggling ensued. At one point we were so sure that Raven and Tom, sleeping in the ajoining room seperated only by a stained glass door, was going to come in, knock our heads together and turf us out in the yard. We were so punchy and excited everything seemed to be funny and we were laughing hysterically. We did eventually calm down and dozed a bit and around dawn Ali wandered off to her own bed and Jenn and I dropped off to a deeper sleep.
And thus ended Day Two!