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| Cy and “T”‘s pond at dusk |
It occurred to me last week, as I preparing to hit the road for a couple of weeks in Vermont and Massachusetts, that I hadn’t been home to New England during the summer months since about 2002. After just two days in Cornwall, Vermont, I’ve decided that such a long absence can never be allowed to happen again. It is beautiful here.
The drive up wasn’t so much beautiful as it was terrifying.
I left Atlanta at around 9:30 last Thursday morning, fully intending to waste a good bit of time along the way in order to arrive in Vermont at around 6:30 Friday morning. Within 20 minutes of leaving, however, I was confronted with a massive traffic jam in I-85 just north of Atlanta. The kind of traffic jam wherein one shuts off one’s engine and reads a book. After sitting for just over an hour in the stifling heat (and during that hour the rain began to fall, necessitating the closing of my car’s windows), the traffic began to move and I began to revise my time-wasting plans.
After the delay, my GPS still had me arriving in Vermont at about 4:30 AM, so I took a side trip to Vesuvius, VA, to try to determine what had happened to a campground there that I enjoyed several times between 2000 and 2005, but which had mysteriously fallen off of the internet (and I had stopped receiving emails from the owners) after that time.
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| Rain coming in at St. Genevieve Cemetery in Shoreham |
After driving to the site, which, in the George Washington National Forest, is about 20 miles off of 85, I was dismayed to discover that it is most definitely no longer open for business. The grounds that used to be home to about 30 very nice campsites appear to have been more or less abandoned. The house that used to house the registration desk and a small camping-oriented store now looks as if it’s a single-family home; and the two tents that were pitched nearby were reminiscent of the setups that I used to have when I “camped” in my family’s yard. If that is the case, then the couple who owned the campsite have given it up – their only child was an adult in the early years of this century.
I’ll continue to investigate what happened to the Tye River Gap Campground – after all, there is still a shabby-looking sign on the way to Vesuvius which reads, simply, “Camping –>.” The last emails I got from the campground-owning couple, however, were narratives of what their only son was going through during his deployment in Iraq. The morbidly-imaginative part of me has thought, since the emails stopped, that the son may have been killed in that worthless war; and that the grieving couple either split up and left or simply sold their property to try to escape from their memories.
After the trip to Vesuvius, I decided to spend another hour at a Cracker Barrel restaurant, where I had a leisurely meal, read a few chapters of a book on my iPhone, explored the country store attached to the restaurant (those of you not in the US may not understand the concept of a Cracker Barrel. Look it up), and once again hit the road for Vermont. My GPS now told me that I’d arrive between 5:00 and 5:30, so everything was looking great as long as I set a moderate speed.
Just before Bethlehem, PA, however, the storms began. I’m not talking about little rainshowers here. I’m talking sheets of water falling from the sky. I’m talking hydroplaning at 20 miles per hour. I’m talking all lanes closed due to rollover crashes, strobe lightning that left you blind for two seconds at a time, and a cacophony on the car’s roof that made hearing the radio impossible. There were no rest areas, so my only option was to plod along with everyone else on the highway. The rain eventually slacked off a bit, but it didn’t stop entirely until I was on the New York Thruway nearly three hours later. In celebration, I stopped at a service area for some coffee and a “health break” (in Georgia that’s what we call the act of pooping) and to let my nerves loosen up a bit before getting back behind the wheel.
As soon as I did that, however, the rain started again.
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| Old grist mill at the Middlebury falls |
I ended up rolling into Cy’s driveway at a little after 7:00 in the morning, simultaneously exhausted and jacked up (from the caffeine and from the fact that I was here). Cy and “T” gave me some more coffee, visited with me, and presented me with a handout with phone numbers and instructions to follow while they were away in Maine for a wedding (they left around noon on Friday and I expect them back later today).
I tried, unsuccessfully, to take a nap during the afternoon; but was unable to fall sleep until nearly 11:00 Friday night. When I was awakened by one of the cats at 6:00 AM yesterday, I was not a totally happy camper.
After feeding the animals, I installed a new wireless router for Cy and contemplated going back to bed.
The sun was shining brightly, however, so after a shower and some coffee, I hit the road for Middlebury, where the brass band will play next Thursday.
After a few hours of walking around and shopping, I decided to go to Shoreham – just because. Along the way, I stopped at Evergreen Cemetery in West Cornwall for some photos. Upon arriving in Shoreham, I decided to visit the Shoreham Village Cemetery (hadn’t been there since I was in elementary school). Spent an hour or so there and then drove a big loop down Watch Point Road and over to 74…where I stopped at the Lakeview and St. Genevieve cemeteries for more pictures. While there, it began to rain again, so I headed back to Cornwall. I took a long circuitous route through Vergennes (on 22A) and back to Middlebury (Route 7), arriving back at the house at about 6:00 PM.
Spend the rest of the evening playing with the animals, watching television, and surfing the net. At around 11:00, I fell into bed.
I don’t think I moved until 8:00 this morning.