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Published: August 23rd 2022
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Sunday: Drove 2 hours basically diagonally across the entire state of Vermont to the best dog place ever called "Dog mountain". It's a 150 acre non-profit where the grounds are dedicated to allowing dogs be free and enjoy the outdoors. "Our mission is to steward and sustain the 150-acre Dog Mountain property in Vermont as a unique national treasure that honors the healing power of “dogs, nature, love, and art,” and to preserve and celebrate the important artistic contributions of Dog Mountain’s iconic creator, Stephen Huneck." There is an art gallery of things for sale that are all dog related and super cute. Then there's a "Dog chapel" where people have posted photos and comments to memorialize their furry friends who have left them. Then there's 10 miles of hiking trails, a dog lagoon and a grassy stage area. There was even a concern happening Sunday evening with the Levitt Amp Music series- this week was Albannach from Scotland. A scottish pipe and drum band that also has a didjeridoo player- very interesting cross cultural music.
Wednesday: It's the middle of July, and while it's not record breaking heat like it is in Europe the Northeast has been getting a
heat wave. Uncomfortably warm and Vermont is not prepared for this since it only happens a few times a year. No A/C and on a work day I'm still stuck inside on my computer- pretty miserable. So after work, we left immediately to find a swim hole for the evening. What makes it worse is I work roughly AZ time still so I can't leave work until at least 5:30/6pm local time. bleh. Of course Copper hates the water, and even has anxiety staying on the shore and watching me swim. What's with that?
Thursday: In an effort to battle only writing about the positives (a thing almost everyone does on social media). I'll be honest and say this day sucked. One of the things that really sucks about traveling full time is a lack of control over your space which is especially problematic when something goes wrong. Everything is fine when things work, but when something stops working, you don't have a game plan or back up. Today it was the internet. It started by being intermittently on and off. Couldn't figure out what or why. But basically as soon as I got logged into work systems and
got the VPN up it would go back out. Cycling between getting connection and not every 10 minutes. I've had internet issues before and can work for a few hours from a hotspot on my phone. Unfortunately, I'm so remote the cell connection my phone gets is absolutelty terrible, so that wasn't a feasible back up this time. Further, the cell service being bad, meant that even when the host was trying to troubleshoot the internet and called the ISP, neither of us can get cell service strong enough to make the call and be next to the router to give them the information, restart the router etc they need. Ugh! I even tried lugging my computer setup to another house on the farm and working there but they had different internet issues. That also involved disconnecting my desktop (no I don't have a laptop...), folding up my folding table and lugging it to the next house only to have different issues. Did I mention the morning was still really hot and humid? gross! Given how remote I'm staying on a farm (17 minutes to town) and that I have a desktop not a laptop, it's pretty inflexible to move
locations for better wifi. Sigh... This is one of the reasons I'm still considering getting a travel trailer or RV instead of staying in airbnbs.
Friday: Internet was back up and stable for work. After work Copper and I headed ack to Okemo Mt resort for their Friday evening lawn concert like last week. But this week's band was pretty meh. The audience attendance numbers reflected this as well compared to last week. Didn't stay long 😞
Saturday: While after the scorching day on Wednesday, we had thunderstorms come in later on Thursday and cool it off, friday got warmer and Saturday even warmer- well into the 90s with humidity and no AC. So today's game plan was to "escape the heat" however we could and still enjoy Vermont scenery. First was a drive to the top of Mt. Equinox- the highest point in sourthern VT, because higher elevation is cooler temps. Indeed, the 5.2 mile with ascends 3,248 feet meant it dropped from 88* at the base to 74* at the top. A couple hours later when we descended it went from 75* at the top down to 92* at the base. At the top we were
able to do a short hike around the summit to lookout rock and generally enjoy the views. From the top you can see New Hampshirt, New York and Massachusetts- apparently on a really clear day sometimes you can even see Montreal. Vermont really is that small- from the top of this mountain you can see all 4 border states on a clear day and on a regular day see both border states from east to west!
I have to officially admin that after the PA covered bridge tours, I am now obsessed with covered bridges. Turns out there are over 100 covered bridges in VT, making it the state with the most covered bridges per square mile. I also found an awesome map of all the covered bridges in the state which integrates into google maps. So it was time to hit up the 5 covered bridges in the very southwestern part of the state. What was even more awesome was the last 3 I saw several other people doing what I was doing and saw them at each of the bridges 😊
In the southeastern part of the state is the town of benningham- population 15k makes
it the most populous town in Southern VT- they even have a walmart! Side note- there is only one Target in the entire state of VT and it only opened in 2018 up in Burlington. While this wasn't the cloest walmart to where I am staying, it is the closest in this direction. There are 2 walmarts about 50 minutes away to the northwest and northeast. This one is an hour away to the southwest... yes the nearest walmart is 50 minutes away and target is even further. After giving my life savings away at the laundromat (seriously laundry prices are insane- it's $6 for the washer and $1 gets you 12 minutes in the dryer), we went for a walk around the tallest structure in VT. The Bennington monument is 306 feet tall and is very prominent around town. During the day you can take the elevator to the top too!
I will say one thing about dealing with weather in the low 90s with humidity and no AC versus Arizona where everything has AC, no humidity and well into the 100s is that you can still take a cool shower- the water is still cold coming out
of the tap 😊 So yeah, the summary of this week is fighting the heat and dealing with internet struggles! Ugh. Still a great time though 😊
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