somewhere about half way, once Derek Trucks starts up, we encounter an amazing rainstorm. bolt lighting, the kind immoralized in those night pictures of san fransisco, was raining down upon us from all angles. the road became a river, and then as soon as it came, it went again.

we made excellent time, according to my dad we were averaging 85 most of the trip and that got us there roughly in 3 hours... maybe less. at around 5:30 we pull into my Aunt Barb's house and step out into the crisp welcoming vermont air. my aunt and uncle had done construction on the house since our previous stay so my dad, led my my uncle charlie, gave a thourough inspection of the new wing. after a few moments admiring the craftsmanship. my sister and myself head outside and stroll around the yard a bit.

my aunt has this insanely big garden, filled with all sorts of vegtables and no matter what season it is... unless of course a good foot of snow covers the ground, there is always something in it. we find later that the cucumbers, grown to an unusual 2 feet long, are really cool when you chuck them against a tree. my dad, stepmom,aunt and uncle emerge from the house and go and check on the grill... which is already busy cooking dinner. naturally, in the most possible vermont way, my uncle has a bonfire randomly churnin away in the corner of the yard. it is reminicient of a late night bonfire we had one summer, in some tribal way we all paraded around the tower of flame and marvled at its heat in the cold of the night.

we ate in the family gezebo. a relic moved from the old residence on Brookside Rd. it has seen better days, yet the benches decide to support us for that night. after dinner i pull out the frisbee and attemp a game. my dad, my uncle, my sister and I all try and throw it around but we soon find that the task is easier said than done. we play untill we can no longer see. once that moment came, or a little afterwords, we all head inside for tea and conversation.

my aunt has these two kittens that are supposidly shy. i am sleeping on this couch and in the middle of the night i awake to a cat ass right in my face. make a fist and put one end of it up about 2 inches away from your eyes... and you'll know what im talking about. the two cats are litter mates and will be your best friend once you try to get some sleep. convinced that i will never ever get to bed thanks to the shock of waking to an eyeful of cat sphincter, i crack open "The Jungle" and read a few hundred pages. soon i realize that the book sucks royal cat ass (how appropriate) so i throw it in a corner and hit the sheets.

id say the first person up was my unlce, and it was probably at 6 in the morning. something comforting about my aunts house is you usually wake up and you enter right into some sort of morning ritual. weither it be breakfast or a rush to a tag sale, something is going on in the wee hours of the morn. in the case of this saturday, the antiquing part of our trip would be carried out. an old vermont lady died, and her belongings are being auctioned off at 9:30 that morning. faster than fast, we head out... i am driving and im following my uncle down and around the vermont roads.. "the best in the world" my dad says. i'd have to agree.. untill my 60 mile per hour joyride is promptly ended by a rustic dirt road.

the auction consisted of alot of interesting people bidding on alot of interesting items. it was also a prime place to pick up the vermont accent. if your unfermiliar, just think of a canadian accent... or try to, and after every couple of words pause and think.. Hard A's are the key to speaking like a true vermonter. the auctioneer was the man, he spoke so damn fast i almost wanted to jump and place a bid on something. my aunt was captured by his chant and ended up taking home an end table she didnt know she needed.

later in the day, i found myself heading down the river on a bright yellow tube. the whole family rented em out and for a good 3 hours we spent quality time floating downstream. it was really relaxing and very zen, up to the point when my ass got hit by a huge rock. all was repaid however when a Great Blue Heron jumped out of the brush and took off right as i steamed by him. the river forked around little islands, creating these wonderful isolated quick-moving sections of the trip. i expected to see a moose, or an indian, or something. the river straightened out at anothe point and you entered 'Camp-O-Rama', a community of tourists and their mobile homes, all set up on the river, all looking at us as we slowly floated by. My Dad decided he'd let the river take him all the way down. as a result he was constantly splashing around like a wounded animal and getting on and off the ramp to get back in the water and off the rocks.

thus end saturday, we are all very tired from a long day of doing absolutely nothing. we get out of the rafts at a rocky ledge and pull them onto a dirt road. my uncle placed them into his trailer, along with my sister, my aunt, and myself and we all head off down it towards home. let me tell you, sitting in a trailer with 3 people and 6 tubes is not as fun as it sounds. they let us off at a local grocery and my dad and uncle head back to the bridge where we put in to fetch the Country Squire. i note the awesome sky and snap a photo. the clouds were unlike ones id really ever seen, an interesting end to my long day of floating.

back home, i change into some dry clothes and we book reservations to a resturant... a nice 40 minutes away. My dad remembers the place from when he lived in vermont, "Best Damn Pad Thai ive ever had". i slept most of the way there, everyone slept most of the way there. when we do arrive, i notice that ive been to this place before, it was really ackward.... i know i had but i dont know when. regardless, the food was excellent and when we come out of the resurant i chanced to look up. The sky was phenominal, i was breathless, the stars were everywhere, and in the south was Mars, shining brighter than i'd ever seen it. me and my dad talk some of the way back home, the air was very cool that night, the temperature dropped to a nice 40 degrees... quite a nice alternative to the 90 degree weather i left in conneticut.

sunday i make the family drive to brattlebro so i can get donnelly a decent gift. i needed to go anyways, its home of the coolest music store in the world as well as the coolest damn record shop. i stared down a P-Bass for 195... but i decided against it and headed across the stree to browse the tunes at the record shop. I go to the back room, where they keep the vinyl, and there on the ground is a copy of "The Workingmans Dead", one of my favorite Greatful Dead record ever. i decide that i must look through all of the vinyl. i picked up a "Hot Rats" LP for 20 bucks and i am a happy man.

bout time to leave and i still have no gift and i feel like a peice of shit. so in desperation i run into the local head shop and pick up some classy "hand-dipped" insence. the lady was busy trying to sell a kid a glass pipe for tobacco smoking purposes, and he did eventually decide he needed it. i pay and i leave.

sunday, we also visit this crazy farm stand where my stepmom goes insane. she has a thing for produce, she likes to collect it and let it sit out. Like an orniment... that rots. the colors of the fruits and vegetables drew her in and we left with some extra tomatoes and apples. the farm itself was really cool, well... the dog that was hanging out there was cool.. me and him had a long conversation.

so monday comes and i find myself being woken up at the crack of the ass of dawn. we leave today, and we leave early as to avoid traffic. i throw together some random brekkie and collect my shit. my second best friend cat comes over and says goodbye by planting herself right on my pile of clothes before i can get it into a bag. the Country Squire moans from the weight of the luggage, and i assemble the family for a portrait.. courtesy of the autotimer. there was a time when my grampa would take all the photos with his Nikon and Fishermans cap. I have that camera now, but i perfer my digital and i perfer to be in photos. which is a better method. decide for yourself.

with that, the trip was over. we all head into the Ford and leave the house, the town, and then state. i then realize that this trip was indeed my only real vacation all summer... and it was pretty damn good...regardless of the cat ass incident.

Vermont is the Man The End
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