retrospective vacationing...
Sep. 5th, 2009 04:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluecastleVermont, Day One:
Up about 6:00 a.m. to get ready. Mom and Dad picked me up around 6:45 so we could get to the Bus Garage/Depot around 7:00. We were among the last of the local boarders, although we did sit and wait for a quite a while for the contingent coming from over the mountain.
It's a lovely morning in Happy Valley:
Blue skies abound:
Fortunately there were only 36 of us on the trip (not counting the driver and the escort). This gave us room to spread out, and Mom and I each got our own seat. [Also avoids pesky need to talk to one another.]
Our driver –- Gottfried -- entertained us with stories of his life while we waited. Mom did the Sudoku and I had a poptart!
At 7:45 I wrote: “Finally letting myself get excited…we’re pretty close to leaving. Don’t know exactly why I never want to believe it’ll happen until it does.”
Not long after that we finished packing up the second wave, and set out. Bus #884 was on the road. Took a bit of a detour getting to the interstate as the driver wanted to drive by his house and honk the horn at his Dachshund!! This of course meant that we got trapped in the re-paving they’re doing to the only road in & out on that end of town.
What it also meant was that we drove w/in a block of my parents house … and w/in about five blocks of mine!
It’s 415 miles to Rutland, Vermont, where the hotel is.
9:00 a.m. reservation at Cracker Barrel. Had the Apple Strudel French Toast special.
Tour escort chatter & giveaways to while away mid-morning miles. We are not allowed to say the word B-U-S. We are on a motor coach, which is a distinct animal that has a bathroom. Every time we DO say THAT word, we have to put a nickel in the B-U-S shaped bank at the front of the B-U-S and on the way home we pick a name and someone will win all the cash. (We will get a lot of mileage out of this game over the next three days!)
The bus driver seems to be taking the tour part seriously … talking of old growth forests … bituminous coal … he seems to know all.
Would like to read, but it seems like every time to go to pick up my book, someone starts talking.
But, SO FAR, no stupid movies. YAY. [I should have kept my mouth shut]
It’s noon, and game time. Trivia questions and “how many kinds of pie can you name?” Mom won that game with 25 pies, so she got a canvas tote bag!
Then it was time for some music … “Sing Along with Mitch Miller.” [seriously. A sing along.]
12:40 rest stop in Middletown, NY. Even out here in the middle of nowhere, there was a guy sitting at a picnic table working on his laptop!
1:30 – 2:00 was our lunch stop. Salads from some all purpose deli off the interstate.
Back on the COACH and … a DVD of Yakov Smirnoff’s stand up act in Branson, Missouri. WOW. I put in my iPod, but that didn’t really drown out the cheap jokes…
Feeling a bit queasy on the afternoon leg of the trip. Blue cheese? Car sickness? Too much Yakov? Dunno. Thankfully the queasiness mostly subsided by my 4 pm adventure to the COACH bathroom.
Gottfried fills us in on photosynthesis!! {we will hear a lot about this over the coming days.}
“Seems like we’ll get to the Holiday Inn around 5 pm. They’re having a little reception for us, and dinner is at 6:30. Hopefully there’ll be some time to settle in a bit. We’ve been on this bus for a LONG time!”
4:30 and Mom wants to know if I think their mountains are higher than ours. They’re certainly imposing any way you measure them.
Gottfried meanwhile is on about continental drift and glacial action.
The fabled “reception” was pitchers of iced tea and lemonade and a platter of m&m cookies in the bar. Not very festive, but at least they tried.
Dinner buffet (just for us) was salad fixings, rice, mixed veggies, lasagna, salmon, beef tips and lemon meringue pie for dessert. Those beef tips were the tenderest things EVER!
Spent the evening settling in, and then what I termed in my diary as “Pool Bliss.” Lovely warm water, and the pool all to myself. Grand.
Lights out at 10 pm. OMG EARLY!
Up about 6:00 a.m. to get ready. Mom and Dad picked me up around 6:45 so we could get to the Bus Garage/Depot around 7:00. We were among the last of the local boarders, although we did sit and wait for a quite a while for the contingent coming from over the mountain.
It's a lovely morning in Happy Valley:
Blue skies abound:
Fortunately there were only 36 of us on the trip (not counting the driver and the escort). This gave us room to spread out, and Mom and I each got our own seat. [Also avoids pesky need to talk to one another.]
Our driver –- Gottfried -- entertained us with stories of his life while we waited. Mom did the Sudoku and I had a poptart!
At 7:45 I wrote: “Finally letting myself get excited…we’re pretty close to leaving. Don’t know exactly why I never want to believe it’ll happen until it does.”
Not long after that we finished packing up the second wave, and set out. Bus #884 was on the road. Took a bit of a detour getting to the interstate as the driver wanted to drive by his house and honk the horn at his Dachshund!! This of course meant that we got trapped in the re-paving they’re doing to the only road in & out on that end of town.
What it also meant was that we drove w/in a block of my parents house … and w/in about five blocks of mine!
It’s 415 miles to Rutland, Vermont, where the hotel is.
9:00 a.m. reservation at Cracker Barrel. Had the Apple Strudel French Toast special.
Tour escort chatter & giveaways to while away mid-morning miles. We are not allowed to say the word B-U-S. We are on a motor coach, which is a distinct animal that has a bathroom. Every time we DO say THAT word, we have to put a nickel in the B-U-S shaped bank at the front of the B-U-S and on the way home we pick a name and someone will win all the cash. (We will get a lot of mileage out of this game over the next three days!)
The bus driver seems to be taking the tour part seriously … talking of old growth forests … bituminous coal … he seems to know all.
Would like to read, but it seems like every time to go to pick up my book, someone starts talking.
But, SO FAR, no stupid movies. YAY. [I should have kept my mouth shut]
It’s noon, and game time. Trivia questions and “how many kinds of pie can you name?” Mom won that game with 25 pies, so she got a canvas tote bag!
Then it was time for some music … “Sing Along with Mitch Miller.” [seriously. A sing along.]
12:40 rest stop in Middletown, NY. Even out here in the middle of nowhere, there was a guy sitting at a picnic table working on his laptop!
1:30 – 2:00 was our lunch stop. Salads from some all purpose deli off the interstate.
Back on the COACH and … a DVD of Yakov Smirnoff’s stand up act in Branson, Missouri. WOW. I put in my iPod, but that didn’t really drown out the cheap jokes…
Feeling a bit queasy on the afternoon leg of the trip. Blue cheese? Car sickness? Too much Yakov? Dunno. Thankfully the queasiness mostly subsided by my 4 pm adventure to the COACH bathroom.
Gottfried fills us in on photosynthesis!! {we will hear a lot about this over the coming days.}
“Seems like we’ll get to the Holiday Inn around 5 pm. They’re having a little reception for us, and dinner is at 6:30. Hopefully there’ll be some time to settle in a bit. We’ve been on this bus for a LONG time!”
4:30 and Mom wants to know if I think their mountains are higher than ours. They’re certainly imposing any way you measure them.
Gottfried meanwhile is on about continental drift and glacial action.
The fabled “reception” was pitchers of iced tea and lemonade and a platter of m&m cookies in the bar. Not very festive, but at least they tried.
Dinner buffet (just for us) was salad fixings, rice, mixed veggies, lasagna, salmon, beef tips and lemon meringue pie for dessert. Those beef tips were the tenderest things EVER!
Spent the evening settling in, and then what I termed in my diary as “Pool Bliss.” Lovely warm water, and the pool all to myself. Grand.
Lights out at 10 pm. OMG EARLY!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-09-05 09:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-05 09:30 pm (UTC)mainly the reason to go was because my mother wanted to go, and my dad didn't. so I got to be the designated vacationer.
no reason to pass up a free vacation after all...
stay tuned for day two, featuring alien bears...
no subject
Date: 2009-09-05 09:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-05 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-05 09:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-05 09:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-05 09:41 pm (UTC)