Let’s kick off with an explanation. Why is it named RutVegas? I suppose the real question is, Where are we going again? The answer is Rutland, Vermont, also known as RutVegas. Why is it known as such? I have no idea, but our friends Alex & Mark, frequent travel buddies who have yet to be captured in this blog, have named it as such through travels of their own. I suppose I should ask them why.
So day 1, we commence the journey to RutVegas! But first, we have to wake up, get the kids ready for school, drop them off, come back home, shave the yak, rotate the tires, and pack the car. When all is said and done, we are pulling out of the driveway at 8:45 am, pulling into Utah & Allison’s driveway at 9:30, then hitting the road proper at 9:45 am.
That’s where the excitement takes a pause for a bit, while we drive 4 hours north, to the aforementioned RutVegas. In reality, Utah did the driving, while Allison did the co-piloting, and D & I sat in the back seat and worked. She had to get some stuff done, while I needed to take a few calls and keep a few fires smoldering at work. Nothing exciting, but working on the road is what allows us to start these trips Friday morning as opposed to having to wait until 5:00 pm and fight traffic.
The road took us north of Albany, then straight east from there, into Vermont. When you cross the border there’s a stark change in the landscape. New York state has its share of mountains, but none of them are on the east side of the state. All the hills here belong to Vermont. The pictures don’t do it justice, but I’ll post one for reference.
Eventually, and I use the word “eventually” even though it was much faster being in the back seat distracted by work, we arrived at our Airbnb, home for the weekend. The more we use these, the more we prefer them over hotels. This becomes even more useful when you’re traveling with people, as the cost can be reasonable, and having a whole place to yourself is great when you want to hang out.
As it turns out, we had eaten dinner here one Friday evening last fall, when we came up to Vermont to mountain bike for the weekend, a trip we did with the aforementioned Alex & Mark. Here’s our place from the outside, right next door to where the restaurant used to be. Note the use of the expression “used to,” something I’ll explain later. The apartment is on the 3rd floor, looking out to where we are standing here.
Here’s the living room of the apartment we will call home for the next 48 (or thereabouts) hours. Nice place, spacious & comfortable. Every Airbnb we’ve been to is so clean, it makes a good argument for us to rent our extra rooms, merely to help us keep our place cleaner.
After being in the car for 4+ hours, I was ready to round the corner and grab a cup of coffee. I had done my homework on this one, so I new there was a roaster around the corner, Ruff Life Coffee. D still had some work to do, and we had 8 more hours of day to blow, which we didn’t want to do on the couch of an apartment, as nice & clean as it might be.
We set up camp in the coffee shop for 3 hours, while we intermittently worked, talked, drank coffee, and repeated the above. D had more work to do, though I also ended up doing more work as people had some questions I needed to answer. I also made dinner reservations for 5:15, since we had more or less skipped lunch.
Among other things, we talked about police and the difficulties they face, a rapper who was shot while asleep in his car at Taco Bell, bus drivers and the apparent lack of qualifications needed, racial profiling, and of course the Palestine Conflict. Ok I’m joking about the last one, but all the other ones came up at one time or another.
Plus we just shot the shit until it was time to head out for dinner.
One thing of note when I ordered. As I often do, I asked for a double espresso and a pour over. They hesitated at the pour over, made a little joke, then admitted they had literally gotten the equipment today, and don’t quite have the process down yet. I told them I was willing to be a guinea pig for the first sale ever in the history of their establishment. They agreed, and despite their hesitation it was pretty good.
At 5:00 we left, with a quick stop at the apartment to drop our bags and get changed, then we walked around the corner to the new location of Roots, which is the place we’d eaten in the fall, and enjoyed it so much we were game to try it again. Our general policy is to never eat at the same place twice. But being 250 miles from home in a small town, 6 months later I think it’s ok to repeat once in a while.
Dinner is more of the same conversation with good friends, but this time we talk about our summer Europe trip, airplanes, and skiing. And of course the food and how delicious it is. We enjoyed another excellent dinner here, so we can say with certainty that the food quality has not suffered from the move around the corner.
While eating dinner it started raining, though Weather Underground said it was snowing on the mountain. Hopefully that was accurate. They had apparently gotten 13″ of snow this past week, though to look around us there’s almost nothing on the ground where we are. So we’re optimistic that things will be good tomorrow, but being on the East Coast, you never know what you’re going to get. Oftentimes conditions here harken back to the late 80’s song, Ice Ice Baby.
Stopped in at the Vermont Co-op on the way back to grab some ice cream, dark chocolate of course. As appetizing as the desserts looked, the half gallon of ice cream was probably 1/4 the price we would pay at Roots, and it would last longer. We capped off the rest of the night watching Claim, a ski movie that’s available on YouTube for free. Solid watch, and a good way to get ready for the next day to remind you of all the things we won’t be doing tomorrow. But some wild stuff, nonetheless.
It’s nice to get a chance to relax and not be so pressed for time like we often are on these weekend trips. Today gave us a slow roll into the weekend, and being up here for dinner and the evening allows us to gas up and be ready for the next day. The plan tomorrow is to hit up Pico Mountain, which is next door to Killington. While Killington may be considerably larger, it’s also considerably more expensive and more than I need right now. Pico is good for me.
Thus concludes the first day of our first 2019 trip to Vermont, most certainly not our last. I’m hoping tomorrow is a good one, which we’ll find out soon enough.
Traveling Normandy 