July 4

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July 5th 2017

Published: July 5th 2017

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pwalbridge

Cruise

The Spirit of Ethan Allen III

There's been plenty of ups and downs the past five weeks. I almost blogged yesterday but I had a last function to go to.

For over 10 years we've had an annual July 4 getaway that fell apart. I tried to save, salvage it but it wasn't happening. Then I tried to do something small, for myself. That fell apart too. Little did I know it might have been flooded out!

Two small things held up over the vacation. One was my first small cruise. The cruise itself was wonderful. The city it happens in, not so much. I thought it would be smart to get an early time slot so I was a little tired going in. Burlington needs to grow and the only way it can do that is down existing roads. Overstaying a parking spot, even by only a few minutes, will net you fines and a tow charge so thanks to a few wonderful gentlemen we spoke with, we opted to park “with insurance”. We didn't find out til we got home that there was free parking close by. We're not familiar enough

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with Burlington to have known. We're familiar with a city needing growth. If it has the option to grow in a particular direction, that's where it will go.

I'm a little sorry I couldn't have recorded the narration, lots of good stuff on it about the history of the area, geology and the boat itself. Lake Champlain does go up into Canada and it was interesting to hear about Samuel de Champlain as well as Benedict Arnold's involvement in the area. I didn't realize there were red rocks in the area. I thought that was only in the southwest. There's a Shelburne Point and a Shelburne Bay I didn't know about. I'm not the only one who has asked about the homes on the Point. The narrator mentioned their costs $million+$

Was a little surprised at the land attitude extending into the water. As we were docking, one boat “ran” in front of ours, another seemed to cross so close behind that I joked if he was able to touch the railing, maybe help push us in. People seeming to be unaware there are others around

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them. I don't know if it dawns on them that a collision can be deadly.

The vacation had a better ending than how it began. Old friends had a cookout and set up our next party time.

Another old friend and I talked about vacationing and after trying to set up vacation times this year, a bug was put into my brain. Mental gears got shifted. It's more financially smart to rent your vacation spot. Buying your own requires property taxes and repairing, cleaning up after vandals. But it's pretty tough to rent something when nothing is available. My thoughts have regularly gone to another Winnebago but under different circumstances. Maybe rent a vacation spot for a season rather than just a weekend...

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