Out of Touch in Vermont

So the trip from Virginia to Vermont was more of an adventure than we expected. We arrived in Wayne, PA around 5:30 Monday afternoon, discovered it was an adorable little town with lots of stone houses, friendly neighbors, great gardens, and a really close-by greenway where we went for a walk before dinner.

Discovery of a couple tasty local places for our dinner that night and breakfast the following morning put Tuesday off to a great start. 

Fresh Peaches & Vanilla Cheesecake in a GF Buckwheat Crepe!

Non GF Crepe with Sauteed Mushrooms, Bacon, and Cheese!

We were on the road before 10am and heading North again. Then, we passed a sign telling us how far it was to NYC via various tunnels and bridges. They were all in the 35 minute range, and I said “hey, want to see if Na’ama is free for lunch?” We fully expected this would add about 3 hours to our trip. It ended up adding about 7, and we wouldn’t trade a moment of it. It’s not often people from Tennessee can turn up in Long Island for lunch because “we were in the neighborhood.” 

This is the kind of friend you can't pass up the chance to see.

Oh, and the lunch we got! There are no pics of the food because it didn’t last long enough, but I had roasted beet tacos with mango salsa – so good! Heather’s gnocchi with pesto smelled amazing, and Na’ama gave me a few bites of her roasted beet salad, too. Everything at The Witch’s Brew was delicious, including the crème brulee we all had for dessert.

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful (another tasty dinner find on our way up, and we got to compliment the chef personally, so that was cool), but long. We arrived at The Gathering Inn around 2:10 AM, and stumbled in to explore our new short-term home.

Some of you may have seen brief mention of a phone call from the innkeeper yesterday – she has a house next door to the inn, and offered us that 2 bedroom, 2 bath space, just for us, for the whole month, instead of the room in the inn we had previously arranged for. Those of you who’ve known me for a while, know how I really like having my own space. With Airbnb, we’ve so far been in the house with other people, but had our own room. I’m okay with that – I can go retreat to my room when desired, and if Heather is in there too, well she’s my Heather; it’s okay. But if I’m offered a 2 story place with our own living space, kitchen, and an extra bedroom for guests (yes, she said we can have guests visit), and it’s not going to cost me a dime extra? Yes, I’ll take it!

There is one sorta downside to the house. The wi-fi signal doesn’t reach us. We’re welcome to use the signal in the inn, and she said it will even reach the picnic table out back, but it does mean our access to social media will be severely limited this month. Add that to the fact we have NO cell signal here, can’t send texts or make calls at all, and we’re gonna be a bit more out of touch than usual. It’s a good trade-off, especially since we’ve both said we wanted to do more non-internet stuff (read more books, study our interests, practice our crafts, play more games, go outside more, etc.). This is going to make those things much more likely when we don’t have the familiar internet habits to slip into as easily.

So far today we’ve walked to a nearby hotel/restaurant for breakfast, and I’ve walked the 4-5 minutes to the White River to see the little trickles there. We had a couple busy days of travel to get here, and I don’t expect there will be anything else today but relaxing and possibly picking up groceries (and at some point, carting the laptop to the inn so I can actually post this entry for you).

Knowing us, we’ll be checking in with our usual internet communication every couple days, but I imagine we’ll have more to share in between those times. J