Vermont

It’s cold and gray outside the yurt, where I sit near the woodstove. Voices ring through the walls as Guthrie and Roman stack wood and Michael processes veggie oil near the wood frame of their new home.

We came across the Adirondacks with some disappointment since it was so fogged in we couldn’t see much. What was really the most amazing thing in the park to us was a waterfall on the Giants Mountain. Just a little .3 mile amble to the falls and then lunch afterwards, in less than an hour, all the clouds cleared off and the sky became just as crystal blue and the sun as cheerful as it can be sometimes.
We then finished the drive from Port Henry on Lake Champlain down around to the Crown Point bridge and at sunset wandered through the ruins of the Fort Frederic fort, which the French had held from 1730-1759 before they burnt it down in anticipation of the British arrival.
We headed across into Vermont to a biodiesel pump in Bridport but they had sold out of B100 so we had to settle on B20(%.) After that we tried to find a place to park for the night and wandered in the dark before settling at the side of a dairy road where foxes held such an uncanny discussion they sounded like coyotes.
The next day we had brilliant blue skies after the lowland fog lifted. We went to Farmer’s Market in Middlebury and rode our bikes in the national forest up to Silver Lake, just six miles RT, but all uphill, where once again the miracle of rapid weather change overtook us. We left the parking lot in the embrace of sunny weather and arrived out of the woods at the lake for stormy clouds, wind and cold.
With raindrops spitting on the windshield we arrived at our friends’ home in Huntington. Their daughter now lives in their home and they have lived for three years in a yurt about 5 miles up the way. We had a wonderful breakfast today at their neighbors’ and soon I’ll pitch in to help with winterizing. Tomorrow I’ll get some time with Guthrie’s daughters who I’ve known since they were kids… I relish these folks and their kids like sunshine.