Dave took me along on his Saturday errands. First we visited his sailboat, up in drydock for the winter. It was very interesting, especially now that I have the van and have many of the same issues as him, propane system, electrical system, water system, removable tables, inverters, etc. We toured the quaint New England towns of Hingham, Hull, and Scituate. Hull is especially interesting, since it is isolated on a little strip of land, one way in and out. I had some familiarity with the northern suburbs of Boston, but almost none for the southern. It’s pretty nice down here. Dave was pointing out all the little and big islands and how much fun he has sailing about out there.
I got out of there around 3PM, which barely leaves me enough time to make it to Johnny’s in Vermont by dark.
I do make it by dark just barely and soon is dinner: applewood-smoked salmon served on a white cedar shingle. Pretty darned awesome!
Sunday, we tour his 40 acres, have a little quiet time, drive to the ever so quaint Vermont country store and tour the crazy fall-leafed countryside. Dave and Linda leave; me and Johnny have another awesome meal of local homemade sausage; Johnny leaves even though you can tell he doesn’t want to.
Monday afternoon I plan to go explore a little on my own, find a place with wifi and hang out, and eventually I do, but two hours later than I thought, because like the rube I am, I got my fancy van stuck on Johnny’s nice green, wet leaf-covered grass.
It seemed like a good idea to pull forward and turn around to drive out going forward, rather than the tiresome task of backing all the way out the “driveway”, but I pulled down the very slight hill, and … couldn’t back up! The wheels just spun on the grass/leaves, and wouldn’t go anywhere. I f—ed around with trying to get it unstuck for 1/2 hour, in which time I pregressed from denial to acceptance of the fact that I wasn’t going anywhere, and called AAA. So infrastructure works!
- you get no bars out there, so Johnny keeps a good land line, enabling me to actually call AAA.
- AAA has an 800 number and a massive information infrastructure for this kind of thing. Even though I am in the middle of the woods in Vermont, I can tell the dude in Omaha or whatever that I am at the corner of Cambridgeport Road and Fisher Hill Road and he tells me someone will be there in 45 minutes!
- The guy gets there in about 51 minutes, close enough for me. He has one of those huge flatbed trucks, but eventually he positions himself where he can get the wench on the van and drag it skidding at a 20 degree angle up the hill far enough to be level enough that I can K-turn my way outta there.
Seemed like a pretty big drama t the time, but really, it was over and I was back to my regularly scheduled programming in about two hours. I had a excellent time in the country kitchen-type place down the road. Nice sando, coffee, and an almond croissant that was so darned good that I got another for tomorrow morning and a giant health bar for gosh knows when.
Tuesday
Made some of Johnny’s excellent coffee, ate my excellent almond croissant, and off I went, on the road to Montpelier. I am going to sleep in the parking lot of Dave’s building, and oh joy!, I get his landlord’s unencrypted wifi in my van. So I happily kill the rest of the afternoon, then meet Dave for beers, tasty takeout from the local market, and home to the Giants’ victory.
Wednesday
Eat at the Republican diner (Coffee Corner), tour the capitol,take a long walk, plan the next phase of my trip – specifically, identify a place to get the very important First 10,000 Mile Service for the ole van.
Meet Dave for beers, tasty takeout from the local market, and home to the Giants’ victory. We are not afraid to be the same!
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