And 286 miles later …

Monday, October 8, 2012

And 286 miles later …

Happy Birthday, Eleanor!

This morning was a cold, cold morning. I think Tom said that it was 48 degrees inside and 37 or so degrees outside. We both said that we were warm all night. I had gotten the extra blankets out. One went between me and the outside wall and the other lay at Tom’s feet ready to be pulled up in case he needed it. He didn’t need it.

I woke up about 6:20am just as Tom was going out the door. For whatever reason I felt the top edge of my sleeping bag and it felt a damp cold. I didn’t like the thought of a wet sleeping bag. I felt the wall. It, too, was cold as expected. But then my hand felt wet. I got the flashlight out and the wall shone back at me. It was wet. The cold outside and the warm inside had put some condensation on the wall. Oh, darn!

When I got out of bed I pulled the top of the sleeping bag toward the bottom of the bed so that it would be closer to the warmth of the room. If it was really wet it would dry sooner. It really felt/looked weird to see the sleeping bag all fluffed at the bottom of the bed. I’ve never left that bed like that. I had high hopes of what that bed would be like when we arrived home.
It was about 9am when we headed out toward Vermont. People were making preparations to leave. Gone was the party atmosphere of last night, although some of it was still there. One can party and work too.

All in all it was an interesting day. We found one cache in Vermont, decided not to try another one because of having to park on the side of a busy road to get it and couldn’t find the third.
We also found a mill next to one of the locations of The Vermont Country Store. They have two. This was not on our list of things too see or find but it was neat to be there. There were lots and lots of cars parked at The Vermont Country Store. People were sitting around outside in the temperature on the mid 50s. Some were having lunch. At the edge of the parking lot, which was filled to overflowing, was a small in length covered bridge call the Kissing Bridge. On the other side of the bridge was a “working” mill. At least the water was turning the wheel. The water fell onto stones and then ran down into a small pond. At the side of the mill one could see how the water was being brought to the wheel. Tom said that if you looked through the window a light went on and you could see the displays on the inside of the building. These included a model of an intact mill and some of the machinery and mill stones of the original mill.

I was too busy with some kind of fauna I found in the grass. It looked like a small, very small, lobster. It was not hurrying anywhere. It was greenish in color. It’s a wonder that I noticed it. I have some pictures; I hope they turn out okay.

We also saw the 18th century Rockingham Meeting House. It is now a historical site. The Meeting House was open so that we could go in. The first floor was completely divided into square boxes with aisles provided to get to the gates of the boxes. Wooden benches lined three sides of the boxes. Some of the boxes had name plates on them telling to which family that box belonged. There were even family boxes in the balcony. A sign in the narthex, or vestibule, said that Josiah White used to have a family box in that Meeting House. Then he sold it to someone else. The plaque also told how many descendents each head of each of those families had including living and dead descendents.
We decided it was time to start back to camp. “The Man” helped us find Interstate 91 in Vermont and we headed south. We were noticing that traffic was getting heavier and quickly realized that this was the other end of the Columbus Day holiday. We wondered if we would end up in a traffic jam like they had on the Massachusetts Turnpike on Friday night. The signs said that the right lane was going to end in 1.5 miles so people should merge left early. But by then cars were just packed on the road. We poked along for over a mile and then found that there was an accident in the left lane. So the left lane had to merge right and then, after the accident, the single file line of traffic could move left and through the construction zone. What a mess!

We arrived home at about 5:30, had dinner and were out on the road again for a bulb for the night light and gas. With all of our riding around today we passed 2000 miles for the entire trip.
Soon we will get to bed, after I put the covers back down again, and leave all the packing up for a move until tomorrow morning. Thankfully the sleeping bags dried during the day. Talk to you tomorrow night from Lake George, NY.