Don't Let That Governor Fool You, Vermont Is Secretly Ruled By Ben And Jerry.

As I approached the ferry for Vermont I was quite, quite proud of myself that I had found it traveling only on backroads and working off of only one map. I was not pleased to see, however, that it is still closed for the season! That ridiculous optimism kicked in again as I thought, "Hey! Maybe it is open but someone forgot to change the sign!" Yeah, well, no. It is closed. The people at the diner on the shore of the currently ferry-less area of the lake told me so. And they directed me to another ferry about an hour north of them, which I would have to take the (gasp!) Interstate to get to.

So I hopped on I-89 North and took my butt all the way to Grand Isle and waited for the ferry. We - the older couple in full motorcycle leather, the mom and her toddler, and me - had about 15 minutes to kill so we all skipped rocks on the lake. I don’t know why this is but all of the rocks on the shoreline were the flattest, smoothest rocks I’ve ever seen; literally, all of them, not just some. So we skipped stones and gave each other those silly glances that strangers give each other when they don’t know what else to do. I wanted so badly to talk to the motorcycle couple but they seemed a little.... I don’t know.... standoffish. So I concentrated on watching the ferry pull back into the dock and ran to my car like a madwoman so I would have enough time to warm up the breathalyzer and start my car before it was my turn to get on. It worked perfectly, and I didn’t hold up the line. Well, I didn’t hold it up getting on the boat, at least.

Getting off was a different story. I ended up being the first car in line to get off, lucky me. So I waited with baited breath for the exact moment to use said baited breath to blow into my stupid machine. And I ended up turning it on way too soon, then trying to turn it off, then getting it all messed up so it ended up "locking out", which means I can’t turn on my car for 15 minutes, no exceptions. At this point, we were docking. I was screwed.

I had to grab one of the docking attendants and explain the situation, and she asked if I needed a jump. Oh, wow. "No, a jump won’t make a difference," I told her. She said she had to go get Larry. "You may have to ride back to New York and back again." Great. Back and forth. Larry. This sounded bad.

By this time I wanted to melt into the deck to escape the stares from the other drivers behind me, and I still had 13 minutes left to go before I could even try to turn on my car. So over strides Larry, a big, burly man in his fifties, a seaman in every sense, with a blond, graying mustache and wrinkles worn into his face by the wind, and he asks me, "What’s your trouble?"
I pulled him aside like one mobster to another in a mob movie, careful to not let anyone else hear. Quickly and in low tones, I told him, "Okay, don’t judge me and don’t laugh. I’ve got a breathalyzer on my car and it won’t work right now, it won’t work for the next 12 minutes. Now, can people pull around me? Do you need me to ride back with you?"
To which he asked, "Do ya need a jump?"

I sighed.

Finally he ended up directing the traffic around me and then I put the car in neutral and, along with the other docks hands, Larry pushed me off the boat. I. Felt. Like. An. Ass.
But oh, well. No harm, no foul. I waited until the car warmed up and made some calls in the meantime. Then I wandered along the east shoreline of Lake Champlain, following Rt. 2 across Grand Isle (a large enough island in the lake to house a whole town) and into Vermont. I stayed on Rt. 2 until it met up with I-87, and headed south.

Upon doing so, I realized that I had no idea how to get to my uncle’s house once I got into the city limits of Burlington. I called my cousin Erik’s cell and got my other cousin Luke, the youngest. Now, you know when you absolutely love someone because they’re in your family but you don’t talk to them that often just because you don’t so when you talk to them for the first time in a couple years you’re never sure what to say, especially since they’re younger than you and you don’t know what level they’re at maturity-wise so you don’t want to talk to them in a way that will offend them but you still love them so much so you just start talking? Well, that’s how it is every time I start talking to my cousins for the first time in a few years. I adore them.
So here’s me trying not to talk to Luke like he’s 8 because he’s not, he’s 13, and asking for Erik so he can give me instructions on how to get to the house, which he did but I completely messed up and ended up in Shelburne, the next town over. So I finally got to the house and it was great. After being a stranger or half-stranger in so many places, despite being incredibly welcomed, there is nothing like staying with family. We hung out and I told them all about the Mennonite service and the car trouble and the roosters and the pigs and the crazy Mexico kids and Luke, bless his little pre-teen heart, asked me, "Can I try your breathalyzer?" I was home.

Mark, Luke and I went out for flatbread pizza and Ben and Jerry’s. Burlington, VT always cracks me up because there’s a unique blend of hippie and yuppie cultures - for instance, at the flatbread pizza place the bartender had a huge hippie afro and hippie beard, he looked like Topher Grace’s face wrapped in a beaver, and he was sporting the latest pastel linen western shirt from J. Crew. The girls at the bar were in their best knock-off Manolos and tye-dye skirts. It was quite a contrast.

We traded stories of family lore that had grown like a game of telephone through the different relatives and compared notes on office workings before going to the store to get ice cream since the Ben and Jerry’s shoppe was closed. While we were leaving I was entranced by the English/French exit signs on the automatic doors and Mark and Luke laughed at me while I tried to take a picture and the doors kept moving. We went home and hung out and went to bed early because it was still a school night.

The next day was my free day in Burlington. I was a little tired after being woken up at 4 am by the phone - it was Bubbi calling to get advice after fighting with his friend JP. He said that JP had freaked out because he (Bubbi) had choked him because he (JP) tripped over a bag and blamed it on him (Bubbi)..... it was really late, I didn’t get the whole story.

Anyway, I got up and went to have a bagel at Erik’s work, The Bagel Bakery, then into downtown Burlington. I poked around until it was time to go meet Luke and Erik at the house to go horseback riding, but most of it was taken up by getting a haircut. I did a stupid thing and splurged on a high-end salon since I knew I’d be conserving food and lodging money by staying with family, but I still regretted it afterward, although the stylist was very cool.

She reminded me a lot of myself; we were the same age and she had saved for months to afford to drive cross-country as well, twice! She didn’t travel for a year like I’d like to, but the fact that she did at all proved the forward-thinking nature of the state, and especially Burlington. She was an average-looking girl, but smart as a whip and very cool. At one point her boyfriend stopped by and he was CUTE!! I was glad to see that a so-called "plain jane" got the hot guy. There needs to be more of that. (And there will be if Brian stays with me if I keep gaining weight at the rate I am.)

I met Luke at the house and we had a little time to kill before riding so we ate the leftover ice cream and talked about 13-year-old stuff, but not quite because he is very mature for his age in some respects. For instance, he loves reggae. He also has Tom Waits on his iPod. I mean, come on - I was nowhere near that cool when I was his age. Speaking of not being cool, it was a funny moment when I quoted Spongebob Squarepants and he didn’t know what I was talking about. When I said, "Oh, you know! That episode of Spongebob where he fa–" and Luke asks, disdain dripping in his voice,"You watch Spongebob?"

I said "Totally! It’s the greatest show!"

To which he said, "You know how pathetic that is, right?"

I got told I was pathetic by my 13-year-old cousin.

PATHETIC!

I could not stop laughing, it was so freaking hilarious! But he didn’t have time to relish his victory for long, because it was time to ride. Luke has his own horse and is a great rider, and I was tickled to death that he let me ride Pretty Boy since he was training another horse. I chose a western saddle because it’s easier and in no time we were out in the ring, under the direction of his awesome, awesome instructor, Linda. She’s a hearty woman, real laid back, and was cool with me riding even though she had never met me, I hadn’t paid, she didn’t know if I had health insurance, and she didn’t make me sign anything. That was a far cry from the paranoid state of Maryland. She just told me to get up on the horse, steer with one hand, kick him to make him trot, and let me go! It was so fun, but I wasn’t anticipating being so sore for the next few days! I also realized then that I forgot to pack a sports bra. Oh, well.

After riding we all got together with my uncle’s girlfriend, Paula, and her son Chris. We went to this downtown Burlington staple called Nectar’s - where Phish got it’s big start - and ate and played pool. It was the second time that day I had gotten schooled by someone more than 10 years younger than me, as Chris, who is 10, deftly sank three balls on an open table while Luke and I were playing he and Erik in pool. It was pretty embarrassing, but a lot of fun. Paula is one cool chick, I really like her. Any woman who can talk Napoleon Dynamite with me is alright in my book.

So we left the downtown area and where did we go? Out for ice cream, of course! I swear I think the entire state of Vermont would crumble and blow away like so many ashes if not for ice cream. It is probably the state’s sole import/export and source of commerce. All that other stuff, the skiing and the maple syrup, that’s all a ruse, a clever farse designed by the Vermont tourism industry to a) keep Vermonters from being made fun of by others that their whole state economy is governed by flavored frozen milk, and b) to lure tourists there to eat ice cream. I’m serious. Erik even told me the factory workers at Ben and Jerry’s get to take home three pints of ice cream per day, which they use as currency to trade workers from the Magic Hat Brewery Factory. There’s apparently a whole unspoken economic system in place between the two factories, no kidding!

While we were eating ice cream my uncle and I traded cross-country stories. Mark is really the coolest guy ever; he drove out west when he was my age and moved to Alaska, just like that. He stayed there for a time until he and his wife, who he met and married in Las Vegas in a matter of days, just like in the movies, had kids and moved closer to home, back to the east coast. He’s so incredibly nice. He even tried to give me spending money for when I was tooling around Burlington! I declined, but I did really appreciate the offer, and I’m not just saying that because I know he’s going to read this ;)

And so ended another wonderful day in Vermont. I really love it there and am thinking of applying to UVM, the big state school in Burlington, to get my master’s. We’ll see. We all went to bed early because we got up early to go out to breakfast before Luke’s big lacrosse jamboree. I was sad to leave Mark and Luke, but Erik and I had fun trading crazy stories on our own at the house. I left not long after that, and so did he, on his way to a flea market to buy power tools.

So, let me just state for the record that it is absolutely amazing that I didn’t leave anything behind the first few days I was on the road, because I am famous for it. Ask Erik. I called him after realizing that my hiking boots were in the back seat of his car and drove all the way back to the house from the interstate to meet him, and made him drive all the way back to the house to give them to me. While I was at the house, waiting, I looked around inside and noticed that I had also forgotten my laptop and my hair dryer. How stupid can one person be?

Anyway, Erik and I said goodbye a second time, and I made my way along the interstate, taking the shortest route to my aunt and uncle’s house in New Hampshire. I really can’t wait to get back to Vermont, it’s gorgeous.