Bonjour, mes amis:
“Every day you play with the light of the universe” Pablo Neruda
So we started the week last Sunday with a perfect fall day in mid 60s…by Tuesday we hit 83 degrees and went to bed at midnight at a surreal 70…today it is 33 out, and heading for highs in the low 30s this week. Such is life in the mountains, no? And….the rains came…for several straight days, and the POND Gods are smiling…water level has doubled and now we only have twice as many apples as water in THE POND.
With the perfect fall weather, and absolutely PEAK colors , we headed out last Sunday for an adventure day. Drove up to Shrewsbury hills to see Maya, the legendary potter. She has the outdoor kiln the size of our living room that she fires for 72 hours twice a year, and makes pretty amazing shit. We go up during her annual open house to scrounge her wonderful “seconds” (like going to the early bird dinner) and taste her open house morsels. We encountered her little waif daughter, Iris, lurking around the woodpile like a wood-elf. I asked her if she was an eyeball or a flower, which really stumped her. She was fully dressed in fall apparel, but no shoes, as she exclaimed “I hate shoes”- so I took the “ I hate shoes” pictures which you can ogle. From there we headed south towards Peru (really) for some hiking. We had decided to do the early bird at the Swiss Inn – a small non-descript place we have been driving by for over 20 years without ever stopping, which meant dinner between 5 and 6. As we hit Weston, Jenn felt too hungry to wait, but it was too close to our dinner (it was 3 p.m.) to eat, so we made a quick drive-by through the Vermont Country Store (the world’s’ foremost purveyor of kitsch), for their minion of cheese, jam and fudge samples…milling in circles for 15 minutes around the sampling area until we were sated…..amidst the legions of leaf peeper shoppers. Even got some carry out snacks for Lucy……wondered how many travelers stop there just for the snacking options?
Leaving the store- feeling nauseous, we discovered that the VCS actually had their own “nature trail”, which I doubt gets much usage amongst the shopping hordes, so off we went for a stroll in the woods. Then on to the aforementioned Peru, where we discovered the Hapgood Pond at twilight. Took a wonderful hike around the beauteous pond, ultimately joining two older gents with whom we shared our Bernie passions and spoke of the Trump-devil in hushed tones. These are not hard conversations to find in the Vermont woods. We walked around two miles and Lucy ran about six. We got to the Swiss Inn just in time to make the early bird and had an unremarkable but quite satisfying dinner, while little Lucy passed out in the car.
Mountain living has limited medical access at times, and when I came down with two wax-clogged ears this week (“did that stuff come out of me?”- Roseanne Roseanna Danna), I was forced to depend on my own Dr. Quinn, medicate woman, who spent around three hours prodding and poking my ears with various unsanitary instruments, which, overall, seemed to work just fine.
We got our Airbnb review from our first-ever alternative lifestyle couple, who were, it turns out, really impressed with our “powder room”, which we were surprised to learn we had.
So, when it hit the mid 80’s tropics on Tuesday, we took off with our beloved Vermont secret hikes book to find Tim’s Trail in West Haven, Vermont. (I do believe our latest compulsion may involve trying to do all 170 secret hikes in the book). Getting to the Tim was quite the undertaking, taking the 20 miles interstate that goes nowhere into NY state and then circling back over a series of dirt roads back into this little unknown corner of Vermont. The trail tuned out to be a memorial to the Tim and quite a beautiful walk along cliff edges and vistas of the Lake Champlain valley below. Four miles, nine for little Lucy …and a deserved trip to see the poets of fish at the amazingly situated Fair Haven Inn, with the Greek owner and his Rumanian hottie bride…who must be uber-exotic in the quaint hamlet of Fair Haven.
Have I mentioned Kevin the dump-master? Every Saturday morning we head to the transfer station (dump) with our assemblage of garbage and recycling (like mail delivery, there is no garbage retrieval in the mountains), and are greeted by the surly mountain man, Kevin. Kevin LOVES Jenn, and rumbles mightily when I show up without her. He gives unsolicited advice on THE POND, local politics, where to go to get good steaks and general living in the mountains. He usually offers to take me into his little Belmont “mall”, where he stores everyone’s unwanted junk, to offer me X-rated VHS tapes to take home for the little lady. He thinks my name is Jay, though I have told him repeatedly ,that it is Chuck. Mountain living, no?
So- midweek I drove up to spend the night at the Commodores Inn in Stowe to attend my monthly meeting in Waterbury of the Governors’ Council for Prevention for Children and Families (in the mountains we would prefer to prevent having any children or families, and in nearby Cavendish, they are reputed to eat their young during the annual peak of foliage). This meeting allows me to hob nob with the movers and shakers of the state (no Bernie, sadly) and have a free lunch. The drive up route 100 was splendid beyond words and the Commodore‘s Inn, though dated from the 70s, had a cute pond out back where the Commodore himself held court with his cronies, drinking local beer and launching miniature yachts into the sunset. The Commodore should be on the Governor’s Council, I believe, and should meet Kevin.
We ended our week last night with a last minute Airbnb reservation. Thought we were done for the season, but got last minute request from two young med students from Yale that were in dire need of a mountain getaway. The Yalies turned out to be quite a cute pair of Korean kids, who I think were named Seaweed and Wussy…at least they did not seem offended by being called that. Wussy had decided to go by the name Wyatt in America (cowboy novels?) and they were quite the a pair of nice kids. We sent them out on multiple tours of the area and they left this morning after having taken nine showers in 36 hours. I guess Koreans like to stay clean….
Well, I way exceeded my word count this week. Must be the cold, as it stays warmer in my office-cave. We’re on the countdown- leave for the flatlands three weeks from tomorrow and I am off to a secret location for a conference this week. Enjoy your autumnal bliss and be well.
Love,
Jay
