i lovermont (part two)
believe it or not, my life has actually gotten in the way of me finishing the Vermont story. I've been working at my internship, getting ready for school and dealing with NYU bureaucracy, and hanging out and going out a little too much maybe. I've been tired. but now I have a little bit before I need to seriously clean my apartment so I'm going to try to finish this.
Monday:
On Monday we got up and stumbled out to the kitchen where Barb had apparently been baking for quite a while. She pulled loaf after loaf of zucchini bread out of the oven as she was mixing the batter for a chocolate zucchini cake. I made myself quite at home and brewed a pot of coffee while Mike made pancakes with berries from the garden which we obviously ate with Vermont maple syrup. Then we decided to explore nature.
First we went to Quechee Gorge. It's an amazing gorge where people often commit suicide according to Mike. Standing above it and looking down was dizzying. So we walked down into it. There was a nice path, it wasn't like we were rock climbing or anything. Apparently Mike had never actually gone down into the gorge even though he'd lived next to it his entire life. I guess there are things like that in New York and Austin that I've never done. It was pretty touristy. So we did that, met some dogs, took some pictures, and walked back up.
After Quechee Gorge we started driving to Mt. Tom with a half-naked Ana in the back seat (she had worn her new flannel and climbing a gorge at midday in August isn't really a flannel wearing activity, no matter how unseasonably cool it seems, so she took off the shirt just for the car ride to cool off). But first we stopped by the cemetery where Mike's maternal grandfather is buried to visit his grave and say hi. Ana put her shirt back on for the occasion, though Mike didn't think it was really necessary and that his grandfather wouldn't have minded. Cemeteries in Vermont seemed more noticeable to me than in most other places. I feel like we drove past a lot of them. They're all old and small and beautiful of course.
Then we went to Mt. Tom. By this time I had been pretty saturated with nature, I don't know how many more ways I can say "it was beautiful", but it was. Fairy tale forests and all that. But this time instead of driving through the forests we were hiking through them. Ok, well Mike and Ana were hiking, I was just truffle-shuffling along. It doesn't help that they are my skinniest, longest-legged, blondest-Aryanest (I know, irrelevant, made up, yet completely true adjective) friends. So I huffed and puffed my way up the mountain behind them and made it up to the top where the view is amazing. You can see the entire town. Which means the town must be tiny because it's not a very high mountain. I mean, I climbed it (walked it). Also at the top they have these lights that they light up for Christmas and Easter. I think they're a star for Christmas and a cross for Easter. So we sat up on log benches for a little while, looking out over Vermont and singing country songs with new lyrics that Ana had made up. And then we made our way back down. On the way up we had taken the relatively easier path, but on the way down Mike made us take the steepest, scariest paths. I was wearing flip flops because I had basically just packed for Austin and only had flip flops and nicer kind of black flats with me. So that really didn't work on the way down, I would've killed myself probably, so I climbed down the whole way barefoot. It was really soft and didn't hurt my feet at all and I felt a little like a mountain goat. So that was kind of fun. And then we finally got back to the car and went back home.
When we got back, Mike's dad was already home and was saddling up the Jeep for an excursion. It's a '71 Jeep with the vanity plates "MRPBDY" or something like that, Mr. Peabody. Because it's a pea green Jeep. Barb had gotten the plates for Wayne for Christmas one year. It only had two seats so Mike and Wayne sat up front and Ana and I sat on pillows in the back. And, according to Wayne, "It's not a Jeep ride without a cooler." So we set out for our jeeping adventure, bundled up in hoodies and blankets with a cooler of beer that we broke into pretty much as soon as we left their driveway. We drove through town a bit and then took off down a back road and eventually found ourselves on something that couldn't really even be called a dirt road, it was kind of just a wide path through the woods. It felt so good to drive around without car doors around you, just in the open. I could lean back and watch the sky as we drove. How am I ever going to be able to drive something that's not a convertible? So we made our way through the woods and along the Ottauquechee River and finally up to the top of a hill where they watch the hot air balloon festival every year. Along the way we found a coyote snapping up field mice and watched it for a bit. It didn't run away even as we got closer and closer. And then Mike spotted wild turkeys on a hill. It was all just oh-so naturey.
Then we went home for dinner. Barb wasn't really happy with what she had made but we were all so hungry and tired at that point we thought she was crazy and ate everything. After dinner we were going to go get ice cream but as soon as we turned onto the road from Mike's driveway his car started making a weird, bad noise so we immediately turned around and got his dad to look at it. Ana took a bath with her new bath salts while Mike and I watched and kind of helped his dad mess with it. After taking off the right front tire and cleaning stuff and actually cutting himself pretty bad, his dad decided we should take it for another spin and see how it was going. So we went to get ice cream. Mike buys Ben and Jerry's in Vermont like they only sell it there. Yeah, I know it's from Vermont but I can buy it at my corner bodega. Anyway, so we went to do that and had to drive to the gas station all the way on the other side of town but the car sounded fine. It was strange though, I'm pretty sure it was the only time I've ever been in his car without music on and blasting since we were both trying to listen for strange noises. By the time we were heading back it was kind of making the noises again but not as much. So they decided to get up really early the next day and take it in to Midas or something since we were supposed to leave that day. That was pretty much the end of the day. We wound down, watching tv, Mike eating his ice cream, me and Barb figuring out how to make this project work for the kids she teaches, Ana wearing Wayne's pajama pants that were comically huge on her. We were going to light up the fire again but we were all exhausted and just crashed out.
Tuesday:
Monday night I had decided that I didn't want to just sleep all day and get up and leave immediately, I wanted to have some of a day in Vermont before I had to go. So I got up at 9:30 and was of course the first of the kids awake. So I got dressed and went out to the kitchen where Barb was baking cookies for Mike and made some coffee. The project we had been working on the night before was a nature journal, each kid in her class would make their own journal and observe and think about nature in it. So Vermonty. But she had painted leaves gold and pressed them onto the cover of her example nature journal that morning and I admired it while drinking coffee and talking about the car problems. Apparently she had gotten up really early and called the local mechanic because Midas couldn't fit them in or they were going to charge them for a full tune up when they knew it was just the front right wheel or something exasperating that they do. So Barb had called the local mechanic and he told her he could check it out before he even opened but the rest of the day he was full. The wonders of small town living. So she had taken it down there and he had fixed it and given it the ok to drive back to New York, all while we were sleeping soundly. Then at around 10:30, Mike came stumbling up the stairs from his basement room and was all worried about it being too late to get the car fixed and wondering why she hadn't woken him up and it was kind of adorable. You could tell he had just kind of barely woken up and noticed what time it was and had jumped out of bed all confused and still asleep. So Barb explained everything to him as I, annoyingly cheerful and awake, sipped my coffee and ate zucchini bread. Eventually Ana got up too and we leisurely ate, hung out, and talked about nature journals and Mike's extended family. Then after not much ado, we packed up the car and headed out. We stopped by the farmer's market to get sandwiches and soda again, this time for the road, then the post office for me and Ana to mail our postcards, and finally the bank for Mike before heading back for good.
As soon as we got about an hour out it started to rain. It was like someone was telling us, "The world outside of Vermont is rainy and cold and gray. It is hard and stressful and in no way as carefree and inspiring and happy as your past weekend has been. Sorry guys." So that set the mood for leaving. Also I was really tense because I had sat in the backseat on the way up and had been pretty oblivious to whatever was going on on the road, but on the way back I was sitting shotgun and cringing every two seconds at the rainy-weather-Hartford-fucking-Connecticut traffic. I'm not very good at letting other people drive. Luckily, Mike's a good driver (even though he speeds, but I know how that is, cause I'm a good driver and I speed) and also I felt better after having driven his car so I knew how it worked and somehow that comforted me. But anyway, between country songs and me quietly hyperventilating, Ana made up a game for us to play. Between three places we would choose which one we wanted to live in forever, which one we'd want to get to visit sometimes, and which one we'd throw off a cliff. Based on the similar game, "Fuck, Marry, Kill" where you pick which of three people you'd do each of those things to, but Mike had always played the game with "Throw Off a Cliff" instead of just "Kill" so we decided to use the same concept for our places. At one point Mike decided to throw the Indian Ocean off a cliff. So we played that for a while, doing Woodstock, Austin, New York (to obvious results) or Third North, Palladium, Carlyle (NYU dorms) or various wonderful European cities and other cities that we've never been to but sound awful or tepee, log cabin, igloo and then we finally took it down to a microscopic level when Ana asked about Faith Hill's hairdo, Brad Pitt's pocket, or Zac Efron's pillowcase. That one was really hard for Mike. I think he ended up living in Faith Hill's hairdo, visiting Zac Efron's pillowcase, and throwing Brad Pitt's pocket off a cliff. I'm pretty sure Ana and I both said we'd live in Brad Pitt's pocket. So that distracted me from the traffic for a while and kept us busy and after a bit we were back in New York state, then Yonkers where Mike keeps his car with family friends, then on the train into the city, and then finally splitting up outside Grand Central - Ana and I sharing a cab east, Mike taking his cab west.
I've been in the city a week since we got back and have totally readjusted to it, having a great time, but even just writing that makes me kind of sad and go back to that feeling of it ending again. hmmm. I really need to clean up this dirty apartment and get my head back into this world. But so Vermont was amazing, I'm sure we'll make Mike take us back soon.
Monday:
On Monday we got up and stumbled out to the kitchen where Barb had apparently been baking for quite a while. She pulled loaf after loaf of zucchini bread out of the oven as she was mixing the batter for a chocolate zucchini cake. I made myself quite at home and brewed a pot of coffee while Mike made pancakes with berries from the garden which we obviously ate with Vermont maple syrup. Then we decided to explore nature.
First we went to Quechee Gorge. It's an amazing gorge where people often commit suicide according to Mike. Standing above it and looking down was dizzying. So we walked down into it. There was a nice path, it wasn't like we were rock climbing or anything. Apparently Mike had never actually gone down into the gorge even though he'd lived next to it his entire life. I guess there are things like that in New York and Austin that I've never done. It was pretty touristy. So we did that, met some dogs, took some pictures, and walked back up.
After Quechee Gorge we started driving to Mt. Tom with a half-naked Ana in the back seat (she had worn her new flannel and climbing a gorge at midday in August isn't really a flannel wearing activity, no matter how unseasonably cool it seems, so she took off the shirt just for the car ride to cool off). But first we stopped by the cemetery where Mike's maternal grandfather is buried to visit his grave and say hi. Ana put her shirt back on for the occasion, though Mike didn't think it was really necessary and that his grandfather wouldn't have minded. Cemeteries in Vermont seemed more noticeable to me than in most other places. I feel like we drove past a lot of them. They're all old and small and beautiful of course.
Then we went to Mt. Tom. By this time I had been pretty saturated with nature, I don't know how many more ways I can say "it was beautiful", but it was. Fairy tale forests and all that. But this time instead of driving through the forests we were hiking through them. Ok, well Mike and Ana were hiking, I was just truffle-shuffling along. It doesn't help that they are my skinniest, longest-legged, blondest-Aryanest (I know, irrelevant, made up, yet completely true adjective) friends. So I huffed and puffed my way up the mountain behind them and made it up to the top where the view is amazing. You can see the entire town. Which means the town must be tiny because it's not a very high mountain. I mean, I climbed it (walked it). Also at the top they have these lights that they light up for Christmas and Easter. I think they're a star for Christmas and a cross for Easter. So we sat up on log benches for a little while, looking out over Vermont and singing country songs with new lyrics that Ana had made up. And then we made our way back down. On the way up we had taken the relatively easier path, but on the way down Mike made us take the steepest, scariest paths. I was wearing flip flops because I had basically just packed for Austin and only had flip flops and nicer kind of black flats with me. So that really didn't work on the way down, I would've killed myself probably, so I climbed down the whole way barefoot. It was really soft and didn't hurt my feet at all and I felt a little like a mountain goat. So that was kind of fun. And then we finally got back to the car and went back home.
When we got back, Mike's dad was already home and was saddling up the Jeep for an excursion. It's a '71 Jeep with the vanity plates "MRPBDY" or something like that, Mr. Peabody. Because it's a pea green Jeep. Barb had gotten the plates for Wayne for Christmas one year. It only had two seats so Mike and Wayne sat up front and Ana and I sat on pillows in the back. And, according to Wayne, "It's not a Jeep ride without a cooler." So we set out for our jeeping adventure, bundled up in hoodies and blankets with a cooler of beer that we broke into pretty much as soon as we left their driveway. We drove through town a bit and then took off down a back road and eventually found ourselves on something that couldn't really even be called a dirt road, it was kind of just a wide path through the woods. It felt so good to drive around without car doors around you, just in the open. I could lean back and watch the sky as we drove. How am I ever going to be able to drive something that's not a convertible? So we made our way through the woods and along the Ottauquechee River and finally up to the top of a hill where they watch the hot air balloon festival every year. Along the way we found a coyote snapping up field mice and watched it for a bit. It didn't run away even as we got closer and closer. And then Mike spotted wild turkeys on a hill. It was all just oh-so naturey.
Then we went home for dinner. Barb wasn't really happy with what she had made but we were all so hungry and tired at that point we thought she was crazy and ate everything. After dinner we were going to go get ice cream but as soon as we turned onto the road from Mike's driveway his car started making a weird, bad noise so we immediately turned around and got his dad to look at it. Ana took a bath with her new bath salts while Mike and I watched and kind of helped his dad mess with it. After taking off the right front tire and cleaning stuff and actually cutting himself pretty bad, his dad decided we should take it for another spin and see how it was going. So we went to get ice cream. Mike buys Ben and Jerry's in Vermont like they only sell it there. Yeah, I know it's from Vermont but I can buy it at my corner bodega. Anyway, so we went to do that and had to drive to the gas station all the way on the other side of town but the car sounded fine. It was strange though, I'm pretty sure it was the only time I've ever been in his car without music on and blasting since we were both trying to listen for strange noises. By the time we were heading back it was kind of making the noises again but not as much. So they decided to get up really early the next day and take it in to Midas or something since we were supposed to leave that day. That was pretty much the end of the day. We wound down, watching tv, Mike eating his ice cream, me and Barb figuring out how to make this project work for the kids she teaches, Ana wearing Wayne's pajama pants that were comically huge on her. We were going to light up the fire again but we were all exhausted and just crashed out.
Tuesday:
Monday night I had decided that I didn't want to just sleep all day and get up and leave immediately, I wanted to have some of a day in Vermont before I had to go. So I got up at 9:30 and was of course the first of the kids awake. So I got dressed and went out to the kitchen where Barb was baking cookies for Mike and made some coffee. The project we had been working on the night before was a nature journal, each kid in her class would make their own journal and observe and think about nature in it. So Vermonty. But she had painted leaves gold and pressed them onto the cover of her example nature journal that morning and I admired it while drinking coffee and talking about the car problems. Apparently she had gotten up really early and called the local mechanic because Midas couldn't fit them in or they were going to charge them for a full tune up when they knew it was just the front right wheel or something exasperating that they do. So Barb had called the local mechanic and he told her he could check it out before he even opened but the rest of the day he was full. The wonders of small town living. So she had taken it down there and he had fixed it and given it the ok to drive back to New York, all while we were sleeping soundly. Then at around 10:30, Mike came stumbling up the stairs from his basement room and was all worried about it being too late to get the car fixed and wondering why she hadn't woken him up and it was kind of adorable. You could tell he had just kind of barely woken up and noticed what time it was and had jumped out of bed all confused and still asleep. So Barb explained everything to him as I, annoyingly cheerful and awake, sipped my coffee and ate zucchini bread. Eventually Ana got up too and we leisurely ate, hung out, and talked about nature journals and Mike's extended family. Then after not much ado, we packed up the car and headed out. We stopped by the farmer's market to get sandwiches and soda again, this time for the road, then the post office for me and Ana to mail our postcards, and finally the bank for Mike before heading back for good.
As soon as we got about an hour out it started to rain. It was like someone was telling us, "The world outside of Vermont is rainy and cold and gray. It is hard and stressful and in no way as carefree and inspiring and happy as your past weekend has been. Sorry guys." So that set the mood for leaving. Also I was really tense because I had sat in the backseat on the way up and had been pretty oblivious to whatever was going on on the road, but on the way back I was sitting shotgun and cringing every two seconds at the rainy-weather-Hartford-fucking-Connecticut traffic. I'm not very good at letting other people drive. Luckily, Mike's a good driver (even though he speeds, but I know how that is, cause I'm a good driver and I speed) and also I felt better after having driven his car so I knew how it worked and somehow that comforted me. But anyway, between country songs and me quietly hyperventilating, Ana made up a game for us to play. Between three places we would choose which one we wanted to live in forever, which one we'd want to get to visit sometimes, and which one we'd throw off a cliff. Based on the similar game, "Fuck, Marry, Kill" where you pick which of three people you'd do each of those things to, but Mike had always played the game with "Throw Off a Cliff" instead of just "Kill" so we decided to use the same concept for our places. At one point Mike decided to throw the Indian Ocean off a cliff. So we played that for a while, doing Woodstock, Austin, New York (to obvious results) or Third North, Palladium, Carlyle (NYU dorms) or various wonderful European cities and other cities that we've never been to but sound awful or tepee, log cabin, igloo and then we finally took it down to a microscopic level when Ana asked about Faith Hill's hairdo, Brad Pitt's pocket, or Zac Efron's pillowcase. That one was really hard for Mike. I think he ended up living in Faith Hill's hairdo, visiting Zac Efron's pillowcase, and throwing Brad Pitt's pocket off a cliff. I'm pretty sure Ana and I both said we'd live in Brad Pitt's pocket. So that distracted me from the traffic for a while and kept us busy and after a bit we were back in New York state, then Yonkers where Mike keeps his car with family friends, then on the train into the city, and then finally splitting up outside Grand Central - Ana and I sharing a cab east, Mike taking his cab west.
I've been in the city a week since we got back and have totally readjusted to it, having a great time, but even just writing that makes me kind of sad and go back to that feeling of it ending again. hmmm. I really need to clean up this dirty apartment and get my head back into this world. But so Vermont was amazing, I'm sure we'll make Mike take us back soon.