I can't drive 70

Today was a pretty busy day.  We got up pretty early because we knew we would have a fairly long drive ahead of us.  We wanted to get to Reno for the night because that would leave us with a little more than 5 hours of driving the next day before the wedding.  We were out of the hotel room by 8 AM but we had a few stops to make first.  We first stopped at the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas to see if we could get another magnet/bottle opener.  Oddly, the pin shop only sold guitar shaped openers from their restaurant.  The magnet did not say Las Vegas on it nor did it say Hard Rock café, so we skipped it.  Next we went to a post office to mail some postcards.  The post office was supposed to open at 8:30, we got there at 8:31 and we waited inside with some frustrated customers until the doors finally opened at 8:40.  Then we hit up a Walmart.  We needed to buy some water and snacks for our trip.  We also needed a cooler to put all of our water in.  This particular Walmart was different than most in that they only sold three different styles of coolers.  Two were unbelievably huge and cost $30 something each while the third style was Styrofoam.  We are not a fan of Styrofoam coolers because they break VERY easily but we were not about to pay over $30 for something we would just end up giving to the guy at the rental car place in another week.  The Styrofoam cooler was a little bigger and sturdier than they usually look so we bought it for $6.  We were really after a $6 coleman cooler, which most Walmarts carry, but no luck today.  We bought some snacks, a case of water and a bag of ice, all for about $20.  The cooler ended up being pretty good sized.  We fit maybe 15 bottles of water in there with the bag of ice, but as we found out later in the day, when the ice melts it seeps right through the Styrofoam and you end up with a wet car seat.  We then hit a bakery across the street from Walmart, Great Buns, because we heard they made great black and white cookies (and Matt hasn’t sent us any yet…inside joke).  We bought a couple of cookies, a couple of bagels and a couple of cupcakes.   We should have bought milk too because the cupcakes were very rich. 

Finally, after all of our shopping, we were on our way by about 10.  We headed around Las Vegas and up US 95 towards Reno.  The road started out like any other interstate, 4 or 5 lanes in each direction but it eventually made its way down to one lane in each direction.  The speed limit was always 70 until you got into small towns where it dropped to 55, then 45, then 35, then 25 all in about a half mile.  We made pretty good time, Chris was not afraid to pass people and he also had no problem pushing the limits of the rental car, cruising along in the 90-100 mph range for miles on end.  Later in the day this would get us in trouble, but for now everything was great.  We lost nearly all radio stations pretty quickly after leaving Las Vegas .  The only station we were able to pick up was a Spanish speaking country station.  This was frustrating until we dope slapped ourselves and remembered we had satellite radio.  There were no more issues with radio stations after that.
The majority of the drive at least early on paralleled the Nevada Test Site to the east and someplace over the mountains, Area 51.  Years ago they tested nuclear weapons at the Nevada Test Site, only on days when the wind was blowing just right since it is only 60 or so miles from Las Vegas.  Supposedly, people would come from Vegas to witness these tests (from a distance of course).

Mountains to the east and test site behind the mountains

At some point Chris turned the driving over to Jackie.  We turned off of 95 at some point north of a town called Goldfield.  Chris had seen a road on the map that looked interesting and it took us to the same place that the main highway would have taken us so we went that way.  The road, called Silver Peak Rd, had a posted speed limit of between 25 and 45 and they meant it.  There were no chances of seeing police or getting a ticket, the speed limit was just slower because of poor road conditions.  So we drove along the bumpy road for 20 or so miles to the small “town” of Silver Peak, NV.  This wasn’t much of a town, it seemed more of a collection of rusted out pieces of stuff left over from who knows what.  There were some people living there but mostly in RVs.  Every RV had a pickup truck with it, we suspect that this town was home to some seasonal miners or something like that.  Along the way to town we did see a family of deer on the side of the road.  After looking them up when we got to our hotel we think we saw mule deer.  We took some pictures in case anyone knows what kind of deer they are.  After leaving the bustling town of Sliver Peak  we turned north to make our way back to US 95.  Along the way we stopped for a geocache which was located at a cinder cone, which is a small volcano.  This was kind of neat because there were lava rocks, kind of like you’d find in gas grills, all over the ground surrounding the cinder cone.

Chris took over the driving again at this point, which turned out to be a bad thing.  Once we were back on US 95 we were cruising along at a pretty good pace.  We would like to blame what happened next on the lack of wazers (users of the smartphone app “waze”, who point out hidden speed traps among other things to other users), but we knew we were the only wazers out there today so we were not depending on them one bit.  The cop was kind of hidden behind some bushes on the side of the road.  This is probably the first time we have seen a cop EVER on one of these straight, easy to speed, desert highways.    Out in these parts there are no local police departments, just state police whose responsibility is policing the long, empty stretches of highway as well as the small towns in between.  You can usually count on being able to drive very fast on these roads without risking a ticket because the area is so sparsely populated that the police have a HUGE area to cover.  It probably is not uncommon for a single police officer to have to patrol a 100 mile or more stretch of road and the side roads that go along with it.  As soon as we saw the police car we knew it was too late.  He turned on his lights before we even got to him.  We passed him as he was pulling out and Chris pulled over long before he caught up to us.  This guy was pretty nice for a cop.  After the usual pleasantries (license and registration, where you going, do you know why you got pulled over) we stuck up a nice conversation with the guy.  We hoped this would make him not write us a ticket but it didn’t.  He asked us how fast we thought we were going, Chris replied 83 (chris knew we were going faster).  He told us he clocked us at 88.  To quote Dr. Emmett Brown, “If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious shit”.  Well we did see some serious shit, in the form of a speeding ticket for going 80 in a 70.  Yes, he was a nice guy after all.  He only wrote us up for 80 instead of 88.  He claimed that saved us about $100.  We got off with only a $172 ticket.  Does anyone know if Nevada shares information with Massachusetts when it comes to insurance premium uppers for tickets?  We are actually considering coming back to Esmeralda County, Nevada on September 24^th for our court hearing.  Maybe the nice officer won’t show.  Oh yeah, we told the cop about our blog and we asked him if we could take his picture.  He politely declined saying that he is not allowed to have his picture taken but we could take a picture of his car of something.  Well we got you buddy, you just didn’t see us do it!!  After thinking about this incident a little more we think we know why we actually saw a police officer today.  Nevada pretty much has only 3 east-west roads across the entire state, I-80 up north, US50 in the middle and US6 a little down from US50.  That means that all of the east-west traffic across Nevada is on one of these three roads.  We were on US95 heading north but for a short stretch 95 and 6 run together east-west.  It makes a little more sense that the cop was here since a good amount of traffic uses this road.  We will know for next time.

After we got going again we ran into a pretty heavy rainstorm.  It isn’t supposed to rain in the desert so this was unusual.  It rained pretty hard and there was a good deal of lightning off in the distance.  You always hear about flash flooding and there are always flash flood alerts but you rarely see it actually happen in the desert.  The rain had stopped and we were driving along and all of the culverts filling up and little stream beds were raging with fast moving, muddy water.  All of the rain actually caused some flash flooding and looking at the water moving it was easy to see how people can get seriously hurt in desert flooding.  It doesn’t rain much but when it does it seems to flood quickly.  After driving through the rain for a little while we came across the town of Mina.  This is significant because our niece’s name is Mina.  We took a picture which we hope her dad will share with her.

We turned off of US95 again and headed north on a far less travelled state highway, route 361.  We liked this because experience told us that the police all hang out on the more frequently travelled highways so we could drive fast again without fear of being harassed.  Along the way we almost ran over what we think was a coyote.  He was very small and scrawny; we estimate he was less than 20 pounds.  We wondered if it was a baby but it seemed to be all alone.  We tried to get a picture but after turning the car around he was too far off in the brush to get a shot.  After getting moving again we came across a place to eat.  Chris had been reading geocachers’ online logs and one guy kept mentioning that he ate a really good burger in a place called the Middlegate Station.  So when we approached Middlegate Station we decided we would stop to eat.  This place is the typical middle of nowhere bar complete with bikers hanging out in the front and a room in the back where you go to get beat up.  But they had great burgers!  Actually it wasn’t as bad as you might think.  We read about it on tripadvisor and they said that while sure, bikers hang out there, you also might find Top Gun pilots from the nearby Navy air base, as well as just about anyone else who drives by.  We went in and the place was pretty tiny.  About 80% of the seating was at the bar, with 10% more around the pool table and the other 10% in the 3 or 4 tables they had.  The guy behind the counter had sunglasses and a cowboy hat and it appeared that he hadn’t showered in forever.  There were some bikers (not a lot, maybe half dozen) out front, one with no shirt on, all of them with tattoos, and every single one of them with a beer and/or cigarette.  Inside there were normal looking people, there were ranch hands, miners, and even two women.  One of the women had a leather jacket and the other sported an eye patch.  Just kidding there were normal looking women there too.  While this was certainly not the type of place we normally go into, we did not at all feel unwelcome or out of place.  Besides there being a bar where you could drink your day away there was a pool table in the back (no one was playing) and there were 100’s if not 1000’s of dollar bills taped to the ceiling with all kinds of messages on them from past customers.  There was even, get ready for this, a geocache INSIDE of the bar.  We had to beg the kid behind the counter for the location of the cache and he eventually told us where it was.  For about $20 we each had a really great burger and fries and a tall Miller draft (you can’t go wrong with $1 beers even if it is Miller).  The pictures we took here are kind of grainy because we were trying to get pictures without looking too out of place.

After that adventure we were back on the road.  Our goal now was simply to make time.  Since it was relatively early in the day (4ish?) and we were only about 2 hours from Reno we decided we would drive beyond Reno, maybe as far as Sacramento, CA so that Saturday we had a much shorter drive before the wedding.  So we filled up on gas for the first time just outside of Reno (Nevada prices are FAR cheaper than California) and we started driving.  We made a couple of more stops, first at Donner Memorial State Park where we went to the site of Donner Camp and one of the cabins that the ill fated group stayed in before many of them died and the rest of them ate each other.  (Look it up).  We then drove up to Donner Pass.  We were glad we did not stop in Reno because we would have whizzed right by this on I-80 trying to get to the wedding.  Since we had already made reservations in Roseville, CA, we had no need to hurry so we were able to stop at just about every overlook on the way up the pass.  The views were quite impressive and we were glad we drove a little bit out of the way to see this.  The only complaint was that it was now dusk and the light was fading fast.  We were able to snap a few pictures from on top of the mountain before heading back to the highway and ultimately our hotel, where we arrive at about 10 PM. 



The speed machine



Hot!

Today we got up much earlier than we would have liked.  That was probably the jet lag.  After going to sleep at about 2 AM last night we were up just after 6.  The only thing positive about this was that we were able to get a pretty good picture of the sunrise.  We lounged around for a little bit before taking showers and getting outside.  The temperature outside definitely cooled off since last night, it was only 88 when we got in the car around 8.  We first headed for breakfast, hitting a roadfood.com place once again.  We went to the Hash House which was a nice place for breakfast with what appeared to be only locals inside.  That is always a good sign.  Besides really good standard breakfast fare this place also had really big cinnamon rolls and a very large assortment of jellies which they brought out in little cups with your toast.  Jackie opted for a strawberry jelly while Chris got the apple butter.  They were both great!  While we were eating we noticed a sign on the door saying that the restaurant had been featured in a magazine and on TV as well.  It was definitely worth it.

After breakfast we headed for the Neon Boneyard, which is an outdoors museum featuring old neon signs from hotels and casinos around Las Vegas.  The museum is slowly restoring each of the signs, all of which are donated to them, and placing them around town.  The last time we were in Las Vegas a few years ago we wanted to take a tour of this museum but the place was closed.  This time we planned a little better and made reservations for a tour.  The tour, all outside, lasted about an hour.  The heat was unbearable.  Even though our tour started at 10 AM, the entire tour was outside with the only shade being provided by the signs on their property.  Temperatures, even at 10 AM were over 100 and the sun was very strong.  Thankfully, they supplied us with free bottles of water to help keep us hydrated.  We drank 5 bottles in that hour.  The tour guide told us the history of the signs, which was pretty interesting.  We highly recommend this tour to anyone coming to the city who wants a break from the madness on the strip.

After the neon boneyard museum, we headed for the porn museum.  Actually it was called the Erotic Heritage Museum but it could have easily been called the porn museum.  The good thing about this place is that it is run by a non-profit organization so we were able to view all kinds of porn and the admission is tax deductible!  We were considering deducting our travel costs to the museum as well but Jackie says we’d get caught.  Actually, this place was quite interesting.  According to their website their mission is to preserve erotic artifacts, fine art, and film.  They had artifacts alright.  Some of the more interesting ones included a penis made out of 100,000 pennies, porno movies from the early 1900’s (they haven’t changed all that much), and a piece of pornographic art supposedly drawn by Walt Disney.    This place probably sounds sleazy but it was actually done kind of tastefully.  After getting an eyeful we headed back to the hotel for some showers to rinse off the sweat from walking around in the sun all day.

Later on we decided to torture ourselves some more, but not before treating ourselves to $2 margaritas and $2 tacos at a place appropriately called the Tequila Bar.  We actually were able to eat dinner and have several drinks each, all for under $20!  This is another cool thing about Las Vegas.  They make their money on the casinos which means food and drink is very inexpensive.  After filling up we headed outside to go to the Hard Rock café.  We collect magnet/bottle openers from Hard Rock cafes in cities we have traveled to, so we had to get our Vegas opener.  We drove past the Hard Rock last night and we swore it was only a block away.  After walking in the now 110 degree heat (at 5 PM) for about a half hour, we finally arrived.  We got our magnet and instead of walking back through the heat we took the monorail back.  The $5 ticket was a small price to pay for getting out of the heat.

We finished the night at Napoleon’s Dueling Piano Bar.  There are two guys on pianos who take requests from the audience.  They claim they can play any hit from the past 55 years.  Tonight they played just about everything from the usual piano songs (Elton John, Billy Joel, Jerry Lee Lewis, Journey) to some odd stuff for a piano (Lady Gaga, Metallica, AC/DC, Muse, Red Solo Cup). Chris made them play Angry Young Man which they claimed was the hardest Billy Joel song to play.  They did alright.  The only bad thing about this place was our bar tab.  It was more than our hotel room and we’re not even buzzed.  Not cool.  Nevertheless, we had a good time.

Tomorrow we drive to hopefully, Reno.  From there we will easily be within striking distance of Santa Cruz on Saturday morning. 

It happened again!

We are going to the wedding of one of Jackie’s cousins this weekend in Santa Cruz, CA.  Las Vegas is not exactly where you would fly into if you are going to Santa Cruz but being the procrastinators we are, this is where we ended up.  It isn’t like this was a last minute trip or anything, we have known about the wedding for months.  We have been watching the airfares for several months now, hoping they would come down to under $400 each but they never did.  Finally, only 3 weeks ago we realized it was time to get tickets one way or another.  The prices had not yet come down but we still had miles left over from our trip to Japan a few years ago, which we decided to use.  Since we were using miles and it was such a long flight we decided to splurge and get the first class tickets.  Everyone should fly first class at least once.  Well maybe not.  Because once you get a taste of it you want to do it all the time.  You end up looking at ticket prices and thinking for a split second, maybe that extra $450 on top of my $300 coach fare isn’t so bad.  But then reality sets in and you end up getting the coach seat and you fight for overhead space, you deal with obnoxious people, you get half a can of soda to enjoy and you get to be packed into a small seat for what will inevitably be a long day.  First class is very different.  You really don’t need to arrive at the airport much more than an hour before your flight because you have a separate line to check in.  Sometimes you get through security quicker.  You board first.  Your luggage is free.  You get your luggage usually pretty quickly at the end of your flight.  You have comfortable seats.  You get free drinks.  You get a meal.  You are not stressed.  The list goes on and on.  Can you tell we have been spoiled?  The problem with booking an award flight only 3 weeks out is that your options are limited.  Throw in the fact that you want to fly up front, away from the commoners as Chris calls them, and your options are even more limited.  The nearest major airport to Santa Cruz was probably San Jose, CA.  San Francisco was pretty close too.  LA was only a 6 hour or so drive.  Each of these cities had no award tickets available 3 weeks out, not from Boston, not from any NYC area airport and not from Philly.  We then started looking at smaller airports in California.  None of the airports that American Airlines flies into had any award flights available when we needed to go.  The two nearest places that did have award flights were Salt Lake City and Las Vegas.  We had never been to Salt Lake City before but it was a 12 ½ hour drive from Salt Lake on boring interstates.  Vegas was “only” a 9 hour drive.  If we went the scenic route largely avoiding the highways except for the final 4 hours then it became a 10 hour drive.  Since we have until Saturday evening to get there we chose Vegas because Vegas is more fun. 

We flew out of Newark, again not our ideal choice (we would have chose White Plains) but beggars can’t be choosers.  We rented a car on Tuesday in White Plains for a one way rental to Newark.  This way we avoid parking charges, we don’t have to bother someone to make the 2 hour round trip drive to the airport to drop us off, and the one way car rental is usually cheaper than a car service or taxi.  We left Stony Point around 3:45.  We had a 6:25 flight but we also had an hour drive, we had to gas up the car, and we had to drop off the car.  Traffic was a wild card as well that time of day.  After dropping off the car we checked in at around 5.  Traffic had been pretty much non-existent and despite us having left our EZ Pass in the truck in Stony Point, the toll booths were quick too.  Getting through security was a breeze and we boarded our flight on time.  Immediately upon sitting down we were asked if we would like a drink before we took off.  Ahh, the joys of first class.  Jackie doesn’t like looking the coach passengers in the eye as they walk by but Chris thrives on it.  So we sat there sipping our drinks while they all boarded.  We then sat on the runway for about an hour.  The pilot said it was because our routing to Chicago was being updated because of weather.  He claimed they had to call in their new route to their dispatchers and they had to recalculate their fuel for this new routing.  So we sat there watching planes take off and land for an hour.  Finally, around 7:25, we took off.  While the lesser people behind the curtain (they don’t have curtains anymore but it sounds good) ate their peanuts we had a meal complete with several gin and tonics for Chris and several bloody marys for Jackie.  We had dessert too. 

When we landed in Chicago we were the 3^rd and 4^th people off of the plane and we made our way to the bathroom to unload some of the liquids we had built up on the flight.  In the men’s room Chris found a blackberry.  We really had no use for it so we gave it to a security guard.  Chris greeted him with “here, this is your problem now”.  He seemed happy to have something to do.  He said he would just sit there with it until someone called. 

We boarded our next flight and took off right on time.  This was a longer flight and after the obligatory adult beverages Chris slept for nearly 3 hours.  There was no meal on this flight but we did get warm cookies which was nice.  We landed in Las Vegas at about 11:15 and it was only 102 degrees at that hour.  We like Vegas because you can gamble while you wait for your plane.  There are slot machines throughout the airport.  We chose not to gamble so we grabbed our luggage, they were one of the first dozen or so bags to come out and we headed for our car.  Like we usually do, we played the rental car game where we pay for an intermediate but take the largest beast we can find on the lot, mostly for comfort and the off chance we might sleep in the car at a campground .  The pickings were slim but we did end up with Dodge Durango which will certainly eat less gas than a Suburban.

We made the drive up the Strip towards Paris, where we would be staying.  Las Vegas at night is like Times Square only brighter and more crowded.  There were people everywhere, traffic was much lighter than we remembered but that could be because it was about midnight.  We arrived at our hotel to find the valet lot was full so we went for the self park.  The parking garage was very busy but we found a spot pretty quickly.  We then made our way through the maze of hallways in the hotel, around the edge of the casino, to the front desk.  Total time from car to front desk was about 10 minutes.  They checked us in really quickly and offered us an upgrade to a suite for an extra $60.  We were only paying $48 for our room as it was so we decided to not get the suite.  Maybe we would hit it big and they would upgrade us later.  We were partially right.

We went up to our room which was a pain because the elevators are not right next to the front desk.  When we arrived at our room we found a do not disturb sign on the door.  We were not sure what to do.  Do we knock on the door, thus disturbing someone who may be inside?  Was someone playing a trick and putting the sign on a random door?  Probably, we thought.  We figured if the room was occupied the people inside would surely have the deadbolt on so we would not be able to get in.  Wrong.  We slid in the key, opened the door and were greeted by people’s clothes all over the place, lights on everywhere and stuff out in the bathroom.  We quickly closed the door before anyone could yell at us.  What did we say last time this happened?  We think we said it was pretty common.  This has now happened to us more times than we can remember.  So we trekked back downstairs.  While Jackie waited by the elevators with our luggage, Chris went back to the front desk and told a white lie.  Instead of immediately saying that they gave us an occupied room, Chris just handed the guy the keys and said “the occupant of the room was not happy”.  That would have been true if the occupant was there but we think the person was out.  The guy at the front desk apologized and proceeded to tell us a lie.  He said that only 2 minutes before we checked in he had given that room to someone else because their previous room was damaged.  He just forgot to take it off of the open room list.  We know this to be a lie because there is no way in 2 minutes someone can unpack all of their stuff and throw it all over like that.  That must be their standard answer when this type of thing happens.  So without asking for it (we were going to ask) we were offered an upgrade to a suite.  We happily took it.  We got upstairs (finally) at about 1:15 AM which was really 4:15 eastern time.  Not cool.  We had big plans to go out and do something but we were so exhausted we decided to just stay in.  The suite was nice though.  The bathroom is about as big as half of our downstairs.  The bathtub is as big as our smaller bathroom at home and the shower felt great after a long day.

Good advice!

Vermont Day Trip

We got up the Saturday before Memorial Day with a craving.  Curtis’s BBQ.  Unfortunately it was already kind of late in the morning, and Curtis and his giant pig (more later) is located a little over 2 hours away in Vermont, so we decided we would get up a little earlier on Sunday and make a day of it.  On Sunday we got up and headed out by about 9.  We planned on being there for lunch and maybe hitting a couple of breweries in Vermont as we are now on a quest to visit each of the 18 breweries on the Vermont Brewery Trail.  The quickest and most direct route to Curtis’s in Putney, VT is roughly a third on interstates and the rest on slower going, scenic roads, just the way we like.  We headed down 495 to Route 2 which we took west.  We decided to make a couple of pit stops on the way.

The first stop was in Gardner, MA, which is also known as “Chair City” and “The Furniture Capital of New England”, for its long history of furniture making.  In the early 20^th century there were over 20 chair factories in this small city which today has a population of just about 20,000 people.  We stopped here because of something we saw in a book, “Weird MA”.  The chair is not the world’s largest, it isn’t even close, but it is pretty impressive at over 20 feet tall and 3000 pounds.

After leaving Gardner, we headed further west on Route 2, which is quite scenic.  Instead of going all the way to I-91 in central MA, we headed north on some back roads and picked up I-91 just south of the Vermont state line.  Interstates in Vermont have no traffic, which we like, plus they are quite scenic.  We imagine this is what interstate highways were once like, speeding along checking out the sights with very little traffic to get in the way and stress you out.  We stopped at the first rest area in Vermont to use the bathroom and find a couple of geocaches which were hidden there.  They had a pretty cool walkway set up with antique farm equipment set up along the path.  On one of these old pieces of equipment was a geocache hidden in plain sight.  Even though we had an idea what we were looking for, it took us a good 15 minutes to find it.  And it was hidden pretty much in plain sight.  Since we are working on another project, the Vermont 251 club (visit all 251 towns in Vermont), we picked up some brochures for the next time we are in the area.

We left the rest area and headed up I-91 for another 20 minutes or so to Curtis’s BBQ, just north of Brattleboro.  We have been coming to see Curtis for a long time, we estimate close to 15 years.  Curtis, the owner of Curtis’s BBQ, is a BBQ oasis in a land otherwise lacking in real BBQ.  It is right off of the interstate next to a gas station called Rod’s which we think was definitely a Mobil in its past life.  Curtis has been operating out of a blue school bus since 1965.  He probably parked the bus there back in the 60’s and it appears that he hasn’t moved it since.  He used to be open 6 or 7 days a week but as he has gotten older he has cut it back to just 4 days a week in the summer.  We usually head up there at least twice a year.  The “facilities” are pretty basic.  You walk up to the school bus window, look at the menu which hasn’t changed much in years (except for the prices) and place your order.  Within minutes your order is ready at the next window of the bus.  Over on the side, Curtis cooks the BBQ ribs and chicken all day long, slow roasting it over the fire until it is fall off the bone delicious.  He has a pet pot belly pig, or at least the pig is as big as a pot belly, he might just overeat.  The pig sleeps pretty much all the time next to him on the ground.  You take your food over to one of the many picnic tables.  All seating is outdoors but there is an outdoor pavilion you can sit under if it is raining.  Bathrooms are outhouses and you can wash your hands in a large cold water sink behind the bus when you are done eating.  No alcohol is served but you could BYOB if you wanted to.  People eating there seem to come from all walks of life but the bikers seem to like it the most.  We got our half rack of ribs, a second rib plate which came with sides of potato salad and cole slaw, an order of baked beans and a piece of corn on the cob.  We skipped on the candied yams and collard greens because last time we were just too full.  We had brought a cooler with us but in our haste to get out of the house that morning, we only put a couple of bottles of water in it.  We were disappointed to open it up and not find cold beers because they would have gone down nicely with the ribs.  After washing up, we headed back on the road with a destination of a small bakery about a half hour away called Baba A Louis, in Chester, VT.

Naturally we took mostly back roads to get there, but as with most places in Vermont, you can’t easily get there from here, so back roads were really the only option.  We went there for what we feel they are famous for, sticky buns. They have lots of other baked products including homemade bread but we wanted the sticky buns, which never disappoint.

After leaving Baba A Louis we headed for Bridgewater, VT, which is in the central part of the state, where the Long Trail Brewery is located.  Again, we had to take mostly back roads which are lots of fun and scenic.  Along the way we passed by a great deal of destruction from last year’s Hurricane Irene.  During the hurricane nearly every stream and river in Vermont flooded and you could still see many signs of the devastation as we drove.  We passed once house which unfortunately sat at the bottom of a large landslide.  While the house still stood, it was clearly uninhabitable, as it had been knocked right off of its foundation.

After seeing such sad sights, we were happy to arrive at the Long Trail Brewery to drown our sorrows.  We took the self guided tour which amounted to a glassed in platform on a catwalk above the brewery.  Since it was Sunday there was no production but we did see some signs explaining the brewing process.  We do not recommend the tour.  The beer was good though.  We didn’t drink much since we still had a good deal of driving to do.  Jackie had a pint and Chris had the six beer sampler (6 small beers).  We got another stamp in our passport and headed out. 

We had planned on heading to the Harpoon Brewery, which was located east of us back on the VT/NH border.  Since it was kind of early still we decided to take a side trip up to the top of Mt. Ascutney.  The mountain, while not really all that tall (a little over 3000 feet high) is a monadnock, which is essentially a mountain that looks higher than it really is.  A monadnock is an isolated rock, hill, or mountain that rises abruptly from the surrounding plain.  Since it is higher than pretty much everything around it and it is usually the only mountain in the area, it usually looks taller than it really is.  Mt. Ascutney has a steep road which you can drive to within about ¾ mile of the top.  We drove up and then walked the remaining part to the summit, where there is a fire tower offering up a 360 degree view, which late in the day was quite impressive.  Since we hadn’t planned on coming up the mountain, we were ill prepared with our footwear, so we took our time, spending about an hour and a half total walking to and from the car.  While the trip up in the car was uneventful and the views were amazing, the trip down the mountain was not something our truck wants to repeat.  We had the truck in its lowest gear the whole way down and despite this, we pretty much rode the brakes.  Once we got to the bottom the truck was crying.  We smelled burning brakes and transmission for the next few minutes until we got moving quickly again. 

After leaving, we headed for the Harpoon Brewery, which was only about 10 minutes away.  We highly doubted that it would still be open given that it was now after 7 on a Sunday night.  We were right.  At least now we have a reason to return.  So we left the brewery and spotted a hot air balloon in the sky as we were leaving.  We jumped back on I-91 for the an exit or two north, then jumped on I-89 back into New Hampshire and back home.  The trip home from the brewery was just about two hours, again, with very little traffic until we got closer to Massachusetts.  We aren’t sure if we hit any new towns in Vermont but we had a great time and we were able to hit one new brewery.