I’m up by 6:30, and downstairs making my usual aeropress coffee while the day begins. Today is the start of our vacation, and in a few hours we’ll be off to Vermont for the first part of 2 over the next 12 days. After Vermont we’ll be over to New Hampshire to round it out. In all, 6 nights in Killington and 5 in North Conway. For the moment, however, I will enjoy the morning coffee before the long day begins.
We pack & load the car in the morning. Our best intentions to do it the night before always end the same way. Neither of us is worried about getting out on time and we have most of our stuff all packed and downstairs already. The rest is a puzzle, to an extent.
I’m technically working over the next 3 days so I take my 8:30 call then we hit the road, picking up the kids on the way and setting sail north officially by 9:30. I have calls this morning 11-12, then 1-1:30, then 2-4. I usually drive but today I’m the passenger. D is behind the wheel while I work.
The drive is seamless, and as much as I don’t enjoy working in the passenger seat it’s not really a big deal. To make the next 3 days happen I’m more than happy to do this. In no time we arrive at the mountain.
It’s just after 2:00 when we arrive but I’m on my 2:00 call so I have to listen in for the next 2 hours. We settle into the condo and they go to the pool while I lay on the couch and listen. I’m not sure, but I may actually doze off on the call because the day suddenly catches up to me. If so, that would be a first. I snap out of it and make a coffee to get to the finish line of this one.
After the call Julia and I go to the pool and figure out what to do with the rest of the day. We head over to Sherburne Trails where Zac and I will ride and the 3 of them will go for a short hike. The trails are about 4 miles from the condo.
We more or less wing it and either all the trails here are worthy of riding or we got really lucky. It’s an odd combination of green fast & flowy stuff and black expert material. There are apparently other blue trails but we get only green or black. All of the trails we rode today are very good in their own way. Zac and I like both green flow and black expert. Good stuff.
Strava file can be found here. Not going to outline the trails we did. The green ones were fast & flowy, the black ones were tough but really good. All the trails were good. We just scratched the surface of the park.
Meanwhile, Simon, Julia, & D went for a hike. They were out for an hour or so as well and found some nice stuff. They managed to walk the AT for a little bit, which I guess is a sort of recurring theme in our world right now.
After they finish, they get the car and drive down to a lot closer to where we were riding and pick us up. In all, a great outdoor cap to the workday.
After the park we drive to the supermarket to stock up on some food for the next few days. Simon joins us while the older 2 stay in the car. We load up on what we think we’ll need for 6 nights, which will surely be too much in some areas and not enough in others.
As we walk out the door the sunset is beautiful.
We head back to the condo and make dinner. Well, to be accurate, D makes dinner. I shower then later clean up but she does the bulk of the work. This is the first time we’ve done this routine with the family and I really enjoy this part of these trips. Hanging out after a day of doing things and making dinner, snacking on things while you do it, is part of what makes this all the more enjoyable. We’ve done this with other people, particularly Alex & Mark or the team Kingdom Trails trips. But never with the family. This is an enjoyable evening.
We have a salad and sausage in red sauce over pasta. It is a yummy meal to end the day.
After dinner we play cards to round out the day. Zac gets a rare win tonight, as he’s usually the mule in 5 Crowns recently. The rest of us put in really poor efforts and have pretty terrible scores. Good game to tie up the day, either way.
And that wraps up day 1 of 12 in our great Vermont-New Hampshire family vacation.
Traveling Normandy 