whirlwind tour....Judd does Vermont and environs

Woodstock, VT

- best part was The Unicorn (shop with toys and retro stuff—good place to buy high quality rude birthday cards)

--town is cute but Main Street is a busy tourist trap

--where do the not-so-beautiful people live? --Judd and I tried to cruise the neighborhood but every side street ended up as a dead end in someone's driveway.

-my first covered bridge

Quechee, VT

--Sounds like a food (but probably because Judd has been mispronouncing quiche all these years--I hope the kids get it right.)

-Judd keeps claiming there are “Ought Dogs”  (Not dogs?) (a friend's mother's hot dog stand but it does not appear on restaurant guides OR in real life.)

--Noted for it's gorge and a beautiful glass-blowing factory/show room/restaurant.  I’ll tell you about the clover glass another time.

-While I’m trying to snap pics of  the waterfall and rocks, Judd is folded in half, peering under metal grates and into the engineering of dam

  

other random mechanics admired on the trip

Norwich, VT

-coffee and pastries at the newly renovated King Arthur Flour shop.

-just nano-seconds before a huge lightening storm, we accidentally catch the baking class putting their loaves into a portable bake oven outside. I asked if we could take their picture and the instructor said, "Don't talk to us now. We'll talk to you in a few minutes."  I obediently snapped silent pictures. Judd amused himself by continuing to ask interested questions.  The bake-master was not amused. 

 Hanover, NH

-I'm at the Dean's leadership conference at Dartmouth for 6 days and one of the instructors is the founder of  est.  ( i.e. the Mr. E in  E-S-T)        http://www.skepdic.com/est.html

More about that another time too....

I’m feeling I’ve "kept my integrity" by exercising (longer than I did last week—i.e. 20 min walk in stead of 10 and sweating more because of the heat-- that must count as extra.)   I’m wondering if it’s more inauthentic to worry about my “inauthenticity speech” in case I’m called on, or more inauthentic to blow-dry my hair because it will look like I care what people think.

This is the 51st hour where my cell phones do not work and by do not work I mean I can not call anyone or receive any calls. Even if one device (the b.berry /Verizon) shows 4 bars, I make a call and it drops after the first ring or the (AT&T/ iphone) it won’t let me accept a call. I thought it was just in the confines of my Residence Inn hotel, but the issue went on all through the green and white mountains of VT and NH this weekend…. Maybe the big storms took out “a tower” or something. Of course I can still text, but suddenly, my boys in Maine have gone incommunicado too….. They better be swimming in the pond, or walking the dog, or running the vacuum so loudly that they can’t respond….