Monday, June 16, 2008

Update, but no pictures

Hello from Vermont!

We traded part of my parent's time share for a week up here in Stowe. It's beautiful and we are all loving being in the mountains. But, we forgot the USB cable for our camera, so no pictures until we get home, I'm afraid.

If I could, I'd show you our car! What's so exciting about our car? Well, we ran into a deer on our way up here. It just leaped in front of us as we were going 75mph on the freeway. Upside: we are all OK. Downsides: 1. car is not OK 2. deer was not OK 3. we did not get to turn the un-OK deer into delicious meat for our family and friends. We were pretty disappointed that we'd killed a deer and couldn't eat it. Anyway, the hood of our car is a crumpled mess, the radiator is damaged, the front grill just gone. The A/C may need to be replaced too, and a couple belts nearly tore. An employee at the lodge referred us to a mechanic and we are really pleased with him (in fact, Robert and Zion are dropping the car off there now...we couldn't get a rental car any earlier). As fate would have it, he's from Brooklyn, but escaped to VT (his words) 40 years ago. He still sounds like a New Yorker. Here are two overheard phone calls on our behalf from this morning:

#1. "Hey, Enterprise. This is Dan from Dan's Auto. Yeah, I got a family here needs a car. Whaddaya got that's cheap, ASAP?"

#2. "Do you have any Subarus over there that are all fucked up?"

(Working backwards in time here) Last night we had dinner at a place that has won some New England BBQ awards. Didn't knock me out, but our waiter was this neat-o hippie type in his late 40s who chatted us up about Papua New Guniea, the South Pacific, his wife, kids, the off grid house he's building (he invited us up), the early 20th century anthropologist Malinowski, and the film he made in PNG that's being released by a Swiss company (or German, I forget. His dad is Swiss German). We also discussed our poor battered car, parked outside. He stared at it thoughtfully as we told the story of the deer and said, "Yeah. Subarus are good" before walking away to help someone else.

Before the deer incident we stopped off at the Farmer's Diner. That place is ethical AND delicious! Seriously good burgers. They're located in this fake little VT crafts village (there's a glass blower, a cheese shop, a not too tasty VT winery, a toy museum...you get the idea), and there's a little train that runs around the perimeter. Naturally the kids wanted to ride the train, and we let them ($4 a pop, ouch!). Zion also enjoyed walking on the train tracks. "Look mommy!", he said, "I am walking on the train tracks! I am a rat!"

That's my New York boy.

7 comments:

skyeball said...

Who is this man with a Papua New Guinea connection? I've got to meet him and talk PNG! Added bonus if he & his family speak Tok Pisin too...

Robert M Geraci said...

in fairness, the "winery" is actually a ciderhouse. and the cider we bought turned out to be pretty decent when properly chilled at home.

Abby said...

Bummer about the deer, but I'm so glad that everyone is ok!! I hope you have a great vacation and I can't wait to see the pictures. :)

Tamara said...

ROTFLMAO at your rat boy! That brought tears to my eyes *sniff*

I am SO GLAD you guys are all right after your accident (((hugs)))

Unknown said...

glad you all are ok through all of that...

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Unknown said...

whoa. what a vacation. VT has got to be the coolest state. Laine worked as a falconer there for 3 months a few years back. He LOVED it - especially once he found a B&B with a well-stocked honor bar. He just wrote down what he poured and paid up every week.
Glad your subaru is fucked up and not you guys. I'm sad to know the deer was not put to your use. Perhaps some rats can eat it. Throw it on the tracks.

BirdEtt said...

rachel forgot to mention that she too ran over or into a large breed once. a cow i think it was. always sad when you can't pack it up and savor its existence, but, and i say this while respecting the animal all the same, it makes for a cool story.
that is very new york by the way... i read it a few times before realizing why it's so ny and why couldn't get it at first... because i'm not from ny, that's why! very funny.