Staying In Woodstock, VT, Spending The Day At Dartmouth College

The Grandeur Of The Green Mountain State

It's 48º here in Woodstock, VT but will get up to the 80's later in the day,  just like the lake I suppose.  It's 5:30 and was light around 4:45, as the sunlight arrives much earlier here in the Eastern States.  We will head to Dartmouth around 8:30 because Tyler's graduation from the College Of Engineering is at 10:00 in Spaulding Auditorium.  We will probably hang out for awhile, have some lunch, then drive back to Woodstock for a part of the afternoon before meeting the gang for dinner at 8:00 in the town of Norwich, across the river from Hanover.

We left for Vermont an hour after the kids, at 8:00, and fortunately had a mostly uneventful drive until we hit a Detour sign, warning us that a bridge was out in Ludlow, VT, a town somewhere in the middle of southern Vermont.  Up until the detour, we were enjoying the nine hour drive.  Good weather and it looked as if the world of New York State was painted in green, even more so when we entered Vermont, The Green Mountain State.  Everything went well and when we left Albany, for some reason, in the town of Troy, we missed # 86 north and ended up taking #7, a backroad mostly east, into Vermont.  We had not planned it, but the GPS must have sent us this way.  And we enjoyed being off the highway, the mountains, the quaint, small towns until we found out a bridge was closed on our route. After some advice from locals, we headed due east on # 11, eventually hitting the divided highway, #91, which took us north until we took a 16 mile cut off to Woodstock.  We ended up arriving in Woodstock at 5:00, the time our GPS said we would get there originally even though we took back roads and had a detour.

With Mac, In Woodstock, VT

Our good friend Mac was waiting for us, with a fridge full of his favorite local beer, Switchback Ale, and our favorite cheese, Affinois as well as some Vermont cheddar.  We tried to sit outside on his neat porch but the gnats drove us in despite the citronella.  We relaxed for an hour in his living room, enjoying the cheese, until he had to take off to attend graduation at the local high school.  We finished up our beer, checked our email and then it was time to get ready for our dinner in the town of Woodstock at Mac's and our favorite, in fact, everyone's favorite, The Prince and the Pauper.  This is our third or fourth time there and we always are greeted like old friends and get a great meal.

Fun Night With Great Friends, Dale, Jeanne, And Mac

We met with teaching friends, Dale and Jean, from Western Reserve Academy.  We see them every time we are in town to see Mac.  They live on Lake Sunapee, in New Hampshire, and have had a cabin on a lake in New Hampshire since the 1960's.  Both Mac and I have taught all their kids, coached and taught with Dale for years so we are all good friends.

Entering the P and P is like going home because Mac knows everyone and the maitre d', the bartender, and the waitresses all seem to remember us.  It reminds us of Bud's Carriage House in the old days. We took our time with dinner because we waited for Mac to arrive from the graduation. Dinner was Prix Fix with an appetizer, salad, and entree for $51.00 or you could order a la carte.  Evie ordered a salad and eggplant dish, and I had salad and a rack of lamb, wrapped in phyllo dough and mushroom pate, like a lamb wellington. Yum.  We stayed until 9:30, sipping our wine, talking about the good old days BT ( before Trump) and took an amusing selfie the first for Mac and Dale and Jeanne, which was fun.

We then came home and sat around talking with Mac until we were too tired to stay up any longer, around 10:30.  I especially was exhausted because I was up at 5:00, just like today. Yuk.