American Booty: Equinox

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Today, Dani and I would go climbing up Mt Equinox, the third highest points in Vermont. It was a climactic build up to tomorrow’s main activity (The Great Escape theme park) and Friday Night’s activity (‘the club’ is all I have been told!) before Saturday’s big road trip over the border and onto Toronto.

This part of America is very lush, green and beautiful. But that is about to change in the next few days as its now fall and the leaves will start changing before dying off. Dani tells me that there are people that come from far and wide to come and see the leaves change. I think it’s beautiful, but Dani is quite over it!

The landscape leaves me speechless. The road travels along flat valleys and on either side are rolling ranges that stretch on forever in the direction we travel. I tell Dani about my farewell party being called Brokebank Mountain and that if I wanted to such party here, we could really call it Brokeback Mountain.

We had to pay a small toll to reach the top as a Monastery owned the road and no doubt there were monks at the top. Dani and I questioned if they had huge Brokebank style parties at the summit. Meanwhile, Dani could smell smoke and I could faintly smell it, but I couldn’t see it. As we climbed up the steep mountain, I started to smell it a bit more, but it didn’t smell like smoke from a fire. It could have been coming from the truck…

We reach a lookout with some sweeping views and I take photos while Dani checks out her truck. There doesn’t seem to be any smoke coming from the engine bit so its all smiles as we take photos. We decide not to go all the way up the mountain, in case there really is engine trouble. To think of the shitfight that it would be to get a tow truck up the steep and narrow roads!

Dani exercises extreme caution going back down to the bottom and it is only then that we realise it was her brakes that were heating up profusely. We give her truck a bit of a breather to cool down before heading over to her Dad’s house. If Richard’s house was full of TV paraphernalia then Dani’s Dad had all the clocks in the world! The small lounge room was full of them. The backyard of the house backed onto a creek but this was a big change from my fenced in backyard in metropolitan Sydney. This was carefree Vermont.

We had a huge afternoon tea at Denny’s. To give this trip a whole more meaning, I was also surveying the different eateries, restaurants and fast food chains that I had visited. In terms of fast food, there was the usual McDonalds (Fort Lauderdale, Washington DC), Burger King (Santa Monica, NYC), Dairy Queen (PDX) and Wendy’s (last night in Rutland). Denny’s had the big sandwiches and burgers as well as tasty ice creams, but Dani and I didn’t even get that far. We were well stuffed and I was just about ready for a nap. Such a big baby I am!

We drove back to Dani’s along the same roads that had me gawking at the ranges. The clouds were coming back in again and soon, so would the fog. It’s probably going to get colder from here. Just over a week ago, I was sweating it out in Florida. Tonight, I might have to snuggle up to Baz!

Back at Dani’s, we watch a videotape of The Girl from Tomorrow and then Richard asks me about Ocean Girl, another Australian TV show that was shown on the Disney Channel here. I didn’t watch that show that much to be honest, but I tell him I’ll keep an eye out for anything I see when I get back to Australia. That will be just over two weeks away. But I don’t want to think about that right now.

Summary:
Fair Haven - Mt Equinox - Fair Haven (round trip): approx 90 miles
Total American Mikes: 9121 miles
Total Miles: 16541 miles

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Photos

Big skies reaching forever into the distance
On the way to Mt Equinox

The view from Mt Equinox
Looking east I believe

On the way back from Mt Equinox
and here come the clouds!