Vacation Story Part 2

Thursday, July 10, 2008

On our travels, we usually stop at an ice cream place called Rita Marie’s. They have pretty good ice cream there, and we all get something different. The person that waited on us was friendly, as the people there usually are. As my parents were off in the bathroom or paying the bill, the waiter had come around to clean a table from someone who had just left. While doing that, he began talking about illegal immigration, and how we’re treating Mexicans the same way we’ve treated the Irish, Italians, and Jews in the past. Which is an interesting point, if you think about it. I looked around to see who he was talking to, but I was the only one in there. There was no other wait staff, and my parents were somewhere else. So I just kinda nodded in case he was expecting a response from me, which I’m still not sure he was. Was he talking to me or not? I guess we’ll never know.

Once in Vermont, we have a restaurant that we always go to the first night there. It’s actually changed names quite a few times over the last couple of years. It’s now called the Station Steakhouse. They have a pretty impressive salad bar there. Lots of stuff you can’t find in normal salad bars, including (get this) chocolate pudding. I actually tried a bunch of strange food combinations (since the pudding kept running with the rest of my salad). Carrot sticks with chocolate pudding actually taste better than they sound. And I mixed a bit of my cottage cheese in with it. Not the best thing on earth. Anyway so I said I was having salad for dessert. Which was sort of true. After all, if it comes from the salad bar, it must be healthy and good for you. Isn’t that how food works? I certainly hope so…..

All that, and we didn’t even leave the house until 3:00. So it’s been about seven hours of vacation, and I already have all this. Hopefully tomorrow will have just as many funny parts.


Friday, July 11, 2008

Well, here I was thinking: Okay, I’m on vacation, I get to sleep late (not too late, cuz breakfast is only served until 9:30). What time do I wake up? 6:50. That’s right, 6:50. AM. And I have these weird genetics that once I wake up in the morning, I can’t get back to sleep. So I had to deal with 6:50, and was very tired by the end of the day. So much for relaxing. My day didn’t exactly start great.
But it got better from there. We went to an Alpine Slide, which is basically where you’re riding in a sled on a track down a mountain. Of course, you’re not connected to the track in any way, so if you’re really unlucky, you could get going fast and flip over when you’re going around a curve. Guess what happened to me last year. When you flip over, it can burn your skin, creating a somewhat painful experience. This left a big scar on my arm from last year, and it’s still there now. My plan for today was to flip over in the other direction to make a scar that matches the other arm, but I didn’t, so I only have one scar.

At this mountain, they also had a minigolf course. Now, it’s a bit difficult playing minigolf on the side of a mountain, but we got the job done. It’s actually a pretty challenging course. My theory/slogan for minigolf has always been “Hit it hard and good things will happen.” Maybe it doesn’t always work, but I still get some pretty good scores. But then again, we don’t count penalty strokes and have unlimited mulligans. Anyway so in this course there are spots where there will be a brick wall in the way of the ball, and maybe a whole island in the middle of the golf hole. When you see this, do you hit around it? Of course not. Hit it hard toward the island, and (with my luck) it will pop up in the air and drop on the other side. (This actually worked quite a few times, but sometimes I just wound up hitting it out of the course.) We were actually videotaping during some of these shots, and they’re actually pretty funny to watch.

So yeah, we spent the whole day at the mountain. It was really fun. I went on that Alpine Slide about twelve times. Which is a new record for me (and probably for most people).


Saturday, July 12, 2008

I originally thought today would be the boring day of vacation (for me). We were going to an antique show, which I thought would last most of the afternoon. We were there for about three hours, giving me enough time to read one of the books I had brought (I knew I had brought those for some reason). And after that, mom went shopping and my dad went to a bookstore. We’ll be bringing home much more stuff than we came up with.

And while we were in the shopping district, we stopped by a store called Harrington’s. They had a great selection of these really good quality meets, and we got a very nice sandwich there for lunch (the sign said world’s best). We also found some other really nice foods, including these crackers that we can only get in a few places (they’re called Vermont Common Crackers, but they aren’t as common as we would like).

So after that, we found this place called Mount Equinox. For us lazy people who aren’t into hiking, you can actually go up to the top of the mountain in your car. Granted, you run the risk of blowing out your motor, but it isn’t any problem if you have a powerful car. We have a Honda Accord. We got lucky (just kidding, the Accord is pretty good). Anyway, the path just kept going up and up. They had various lookout points along the way, but we followed the car path the whole way. When we finally got to the top, it was like looking down from an airplane. I took lots of pictures, despite the fact that my bad luck gave my camera a low battery. It was quite a view. My dad wanted one of those bumper stickers that said ‘This car climbed Mount Equinox’ like they make for Mount Washington. But they didn’t have any at the gift shop.

Now, there’s this restaurant that we always go to sometime on our vacation, called Ye Olde Tavern. I have my all-flaming dinner there. Which includes duck flambé (yes, I like duck), and a dessert that looks like an upside down cupcake without the frosting, but some liquid chocolate on the top. They pour the flaming liquid over that, and it creates quite a show. I thought about asking them to light my salad, too, but I didn’t think they would like my creative thinking.

We’ve been going there for a few years, and always had our theories about the place being haunted. No flying plates or meals lighting on fire for no reason, just the subtle, strange occurrences. Like this one. The place is actually two floors, but the only thing on the second floor is the women’s bathroom. All the other rooms are dark. This story came from my mom, who obviously experienced it firsthand. She went to the bathroom, leaving the outside door ajar (you would only need to lock the doors on the stalls). While she was in one stall, the outside door closed all the way, with a clicking noise. Remember, there is nobody on this second floor. No serving staff or anyone. So how did the door close? You scientific people out there could come up with an answer like ‘Somebody closed the main door to the restaurant, changing the internal pressure of the place. Therefore, the extra air tried to escape any way it could, including pushing a door in the process.’ Only problem: the door is (1) somewhat heavy, and (2) not that close to the front door. So how is this possible? We don’t know.

On a less mysterious note, I got up at 7:30 today. Getting better, I suppose…….


Sunday, July 13, 2008

Forgot to look at the clock when I woke up today. But it didn’t seem that early.

There have always been some free-range chickens roaming around at the inn we stay at. This morning we could some outside our room, so we snapped a few photos of us with the chickens. Of course, I had just gotten up, so I wasn’t really ready to be in a picture. But we still got one.

A few years ago, we stayed in another inn that we really liked in another town. Right down the street was this really small church that we liked. They were also an antique shop (boring) and a real general store, that had a bit of everything. So we went back up there today for mass. Despite the fact that there was a church two houses down from the inn we were staying in. Now, we’ve all been late for church once or twice in our lives, but today, the priest was late for church. He actually comes from another church in a different town, so it’s understandable, but still…….

So we had a bunch of things to pick up and throw in our cooler for when we got home. We stopped by that meat store and picked up a ham and some cheese. We went back to the restaurant we were in last night to get some maple butter. We got some more pictures of Vermont, including one of a covered bridge. Then we began heading home. We stopped at that same ice cream place with the Serious Business guy (but he wasn’t there today), and played some minigolf (I won a free game).

The end.