Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Revisiting America

In Vermont the sky is bluer, the white clouds puffier, the air crisper and can you tell I'm already liking this place. The noise level is somewhat different also. This is similiar to Blowing Rock where there are no whistles, screeches, roars, airplanes, horns, ambulances, police sirens, fire trucks; we are right on a main road from White River Junction to Windsor, but we haven't noticed noise at all compared to where we've been.
And back to New York, I forgot to mention a very special family that lived next door to us. Kirsten John Foy, The Public Advocate for the City of New York(Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Office of The Public Advocate)his wife Janel, daughter Chastity, and new baby son(three months old) Seth. A beautiful family, having lived in the neighbor many years, and so eager to become friends.
The morning we left Kirsten made a special effort to come by and tell us goodby. We will keep in touch.
There's no way to keep from spending money-staying in the motel until June 6 necessitated eating out several meals a day so we tried most of the ones in the area. Lui Lui's served mostly Italian, the Crossroads Cafe good ole country cooking and more than you could ever eat, and most of you know I'm a big eater. Then we tried the China Moon buffet which was quite good, as well as the Tip Top Cafe, which was so different than what the name implied to me-quite up-scale, but excellent food, service and atmosphere, and rather pricey.
Saturday, the 4th, we rode the train from White River Junction to Bradford, to a "Farmway" promotion, barbecue, open house, sale.
A huge store with everything you would need to camp, bike, fish, canoe, hunt, hike, ride horses, in any kind of weather, any where, any time. Also Adirondack chairs, swings, picnic tables, hammocks, gift shop. A big affair and a big crowd of people. Did I mention the lunch was free, but that really wasn't the reason we went.
The train ride was great. I haven't ridden a train since the "doodle bug" ride from Millry to Chatom when I was quite young. This train maybe went 30 miles an hour once or twice but mostly around 12 miles an hour so we were on the train several hours. Rrfreshment were available, there was fiddle and guitar music, and stepped off the train onto a red carpet. Wow! I was a fun day though.
Sunday, Janie wasn't feeling well so I attended Valley Bible Church, non-denominational, very good sermon and music.
And Monday, we finally got to get in our house but not until we had shopped at Walmart and Pricechoppers to re-stock our kitchen, and was I looking forward to a kitchen after the small idea we had in Brooklyn.
Met the owner of the house, Scott Chisholm, an architect in the Boston area, and got the grand tour. It is so charming, and country looking, painted red, a big yard, four bedrooms, three baths, one huge room with a pool table, upstairs, eating and living area, mud room, and then a sorta secret attic room, our computers work, washer-dryer, more than we need, but the price was right. A neighbor came by to help Scott finish the cleaning and gave us some great ideas of things to do.
Heard a loud knock on the door this morning, opened the door and there stood a policeman (a constable here). I know my face went expressionless, because my first thought was, what happened to the check I mailed in New York for the tickets I had to pay, or had he seen the Alabama tag and I had done something illegal. No need to worry. It was a simple routine check because the house had been empty and this house was on his beat. What a relief, and how nice to know we would be watched. Very nice and informative conversation about the area. He also told me about an area that would be safe to walk in so Janie and I rode over there late this afternoon and we have to ride through a covered bridge, and later cross a trestle bridge. How exciting!, and we haven't even explored Woodstock yet, but everyone says it's a delightful place. I'll let you know later.

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