This vacation narrative begins a few days before the vacation… Monday night I noticed our ice cream in the freezer was soft, and our sorbet was all liquid. I guessed the door may have been left ajar due to a towel around the handle, and made sure the door was closed before going to bed. Tuesday morning things still didn’t seem cool enough, and quickly enough I deduced the refrigerator was not working. I put in a call to Sears Service (for our Kenmore fridge), and was told the first appointment available was 8 days out! Did some research and learned the overload relay on the compressor often fails, so I pulled the fridge apart and sure enough, the relay exhibits the symptoms. Made some calls to learn no one stocks this part (which again, the internets seems to think fails often on these models). So I ordered the part for next day shipping, and bought a whole bunch of ice and a cooler…
Part comes next day (Wednesday), only to find the connectors are not the same, sheesh. Have to do some light electrical work, and get the thing running. It’s Wednesday night and I’m not convinced this thing is running properly (other possibility is the compressor could be giving up the ghost). We had planned on leaving Thursday morning, but all preparations got derailed due to the fridge. I’m still not convinced it’s working (temp hasn’t fallen quickly enough to my thinking), but we leave the house about noon.
With just a stop for lunch at Panera at a town that I don’t recall at the moment, we made it up to the cabin in West Addison, VT by about 6:30pm. The countryside is just beautiful. Full of farms (and their smells…), but drive a couple more minutes and there’s Lake Champlain. Grabbed some dinner and breakfast fixings at nearby Vergennes, a town heavily influenced by its French heritage. Spent the next day and a half just relaxing, checking out the area, a little kayaking (we’re terrible), etc. Spent some time in Middlebury, a very quintessential Vermont town. Left a couple bucks at the Bixby Free Library in Vergennes, but walked out with a couple used books. The Library is in a bit of a budget crunch – they’re $58,000 behind on their yearly budget of just $178,000. Yikes!
We could only secure 2 nights at the cabin, so Saturday morning we packed up and made our way to Burlington, figuring we’d spend the day and night exploring, then head back home Sunday. Despite a very nice farmer’s market, Burlington didn’t seem to grab us (“too many hippies” according to Adrienne!), so we decided to drive north to the Champlain Islands to hopefully find a place to stay the night and explore. After a little trouble finding something, we secured a room at an Inn in North Hero, complete with small beach and cool places to bike. These island towns have a personality all their own, resort-like in a way but far more relaxed. Hung out by the water, did some biking, got some rest, watched part of the very-crappy Scary Movie 4. After breakfast Sunday we took the ferry across to New York, and decided to explore a little into the Adirondacks. Eventually made our way to Lake Placid, where David was able to show Adrienne some of the things he remembered from his earlier visit long long ago.
Our last goal was to get a hike in before making our way home. We found on a map a medium-difficulty 2.2 mile hike that we thought would suit us, ensuring we didn’t get home too late. But it didn’t find us, who knows where it was. We spotted another trailhead as we were driving, so I pulled a U-ee and checked it out. 5.2 miles round trip, rated difficult. Goes to the summit of Hurricane Mountain, a 2000 ft ascent. Adrienne says sure, let’s do it. Just as we’re starting a father-son duo exit the trail, we ask them how long it took them. An hour and 45 minutes to go up, they say. For 2.6 miles, yikes!
There’s an immediate ascent that has us pretty quickly questioning ourselves. It’s in the low 80s or cooler in the shade, but we’re already feeling hot and tired. Having no scale of how much we’d gone up (absolutely no distance markers, just the dang red dots on trees marking the way), we ask a solo hiker on his way down if there’s much more climbing ahead. He says, well, yes…We push on. David brought his small Canon camera. Adrienne’s got 20oz of water. We’re wearing tennis shoes. We stop often and question each other if we should go on. The few other hikers we pass (all coming down) look far more prepared – good hiking boots, fannie packs, some even have a real hiking pole in each hand. Feeling exhausted but trying not to show it, we come across another hiker and ask if we’re getting close. His reply? Less than an hour to the top…
By this point we’re probably halfway up the second ascent. You look up, and there’s just more up. It’s more rock climbing than hiking. Adrienne says it’s the hardest hike she’s ever done. David grew up among corn fields, what does he know? We’re pretty much out of water when it starts to rain. Heh, go figure. It feels good, shirts are soaked with sweat. We keep asking if we should just give up, but the answer is always, “we’ve come this far…”
And so we push on to the top. David was hoping to beat the father-son time, and I think we may have just barely. Bugs are bothersome at the top, but the view is beautiful. There’s a reason they put a fire watchtower up here, though it’s no longer used. Rain continues lightly, and soon enough we decide we better start on our way down. David finds going down to be more taxing on his quads (or is it just because they’re already so tired?), Adrienne thinks it’s more work for the calf muscles. It feels like slow going, especially with wet rocks that we’re extra-careful on.
We eventually make it down, still very warm and very thirsty. I guess all I can say is I’m glad to have done it and be able to tell you, without having any sprained ankles or worse!
It’s past 6pm, and we still have many hours of driving ahead of us, so we hit the road. We stop briefly to take a photo of where we went. Here’s the zoomed in view, note the fire watchtower for reference; and here’s the view from the car window. There are actually still two vacation traditions left unfilled – Pizza Hut and fudge. We stop at Glens Falls, NY and cross off the Pizza Hut stop. Why is it a tradition? Who knows – it always seemed like Pizza Hut on family vacations was a treat when growing up, since it was an upgrade from the normal Saturday-night Little Caesars. We get a thin crust with sausage, peppers and olives, and bring the remainder of the 2-liter Dr. Pepper (just $4 more, with breadsticks!) in the car for the way home.
We eventually get home a bit past midnight, a bit late due to some map reading that should have happened but didn’t. Cest la vie. Nice to be home, nice to see the furballs. And still two vacation days before going back to work Wednesday! Better get working on that Fudge!
So now, enjoy the photos:
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