Burlington Book Festival

We just got back from a few days in Vermont -- mostly at the Burlington Book Festival in the town of that name on the shores of Lake Champlain. Jeannine had been invited to take part in "Youthaplooza!", which was the part of the festival devoted to children's books.

     On the drive up to Vermont, we stopped in my home town of North Adams for a lunch break, and walked over to Mass MoCA, the huge modern art museum in the old Sprague Electric factory complex, to see if their cafe might serve that purpose. The menu didn't thrill me, so we decided to seek nourishment elsewhere, but there was something pretty nifty in the courtyard outside the main entrance to the museum -- an abstract sculpture made up of what must have been thousands of small, shiny spheres made of black plastic.

    The plaque on one corner of the sculpture's base identified it...

... but regardless of what obscure name was given to it by the artist, the sculpture was very impressive as a presence. And I have this personal predilection for things made up of many smaller things, so I found this very appealing.

    Here's a panoramic view of the entire piece, with Jeannine giving it the once-over.

Although we did not eat at Mass MoCA's cafe, we did find a nice place across the street. It was called "Brew Ha Ha", and they had very good sandwiches, salads, and coffee. I tried to convince Jeannine to buy one or more of their delicious-looking muffins, but she declined. What willpower!

Our original plan was to just spend two nights in Burlington, but as it worked out, we were able to squeeze in another night in Manchester, VT -- just about halfway to Burlington, and site of one of our favorite bookstores, the Northshire. I found us an inn just a quarter-mile up the street from the Northshire, so we were able to walk there with ease. Except for a little bit of rain on that first day, the weather was pretty nice for the whole trip.

When we left Manchester to head on up to Burlington, we took Route 30 instead of Route 7, which turned out to be not only more scenic but took us past the old marble quarry I'd stumbled upon during our last visit to the area. I thought Jeannine might like to see it, and she did. Here's a shot of Jeannine posing with one of the several piles of huge marble blocks.

Traveling through this area of Vermont gave us a small hint of the damage wreaked by Hurricane Irene, although we did not run into any closed roads. Impressively, repairs seem to have progressed at a pretty rapid clip -- it was clear that some of the roads we drove on HAD been closed until just recently, where normally placid brooks and streams had earlier turned into devouring torrents and torn through earth and pavement alike. Virtually every glimpse I got of river banks along the way showed gouged-out banks and large, tangled piles of debris, mostly trees and branches.

We stopped in MIddlebury and found a nice deli with outdoor seating for lunch, then pressed on to Burlington. There was one more stop, though, in Shelburne -- Elizabeth Bluemle, a friend of Jeannine's and a fellow writer, as well as proprietor of a very cool bookstore in Shelburne called "The Flying Pig", had expressed interest in trying out my Elliptigo (the stand up, elliptical machine-like bicycle I bought last year), so I had put it in the back of the truck along with our two bicycles (which I hoped we would use on the bike path along the lake in Burlington). 

Elizabeth got a kick out of trying the Elliptigo, but I think she was somewhat more smitten with the RANS Fusion "crank forward" bicycle. She found it comfortable and easy to ride, and said she suspected it would be more practical than the Elliptigo… and I concurred. (I think she may be ordering one right about now.)

Here's a slightly silly "mash up" photograph I created in Photoshop from two shots of Elizabeth with the bikes, the RANS Fusion on the left and the Elliptigo on the right. Thanks for posing, Elizabeth!  (And for letting me put this on my blog...!)

While in Shelburne, I thought I would see if the shop just around the corner from "The Flying Pig" might still have some of the cool bamboo salad bowls like the one I bought for Jeannine there last year… and they did! So now I have my own beautiful bamboo bowl from which to dine on salad. (And I did just that tonight.)

Our hotel room in the Hilton in Burlington had a great view of the lake... 

... and turned out to be just across the street from the Main Street Landing building where Jeannine was going to be appearing in the three events she was scheduled for.

But the first night in Burlington featured a dinner at a noisy restaurant called the Farmhouse Tap and Grill (with good food, I have to add), with five other writers and one other tagalong husband (like me) named Scott, who is married to author Kara LaReau, who sat across from Jeannine. He and I were the only guys in the group, and sat opposite each other. We had an interesting conversation (when we could hear each other over the din), and he turned out to be a really nice guy, a former car racer and a Mac user, among other things. 

Jeannine didn't have to do anything at the Festival until well after breakfast the next day, so we took our time getting up and walking over to a breakfast place called Magnolias, which I'd found on a tourist map. Jeannine had found another breakfast place called August First, so we figuratively flipped a coin and decided to go to Magnolia's on Sunday, then August First on Monday.
      Magnolia's turned out to be a somewhat funky place in a basement, but with good food. I wish I'd ordered something different, though… I was taken in by this intriguing-sounding item on the specials menu: "Carrot Cake Bread French Toast". I'd never heard of such a thing, and I spent the next few minutes trying to figure out how they had managed to combine carrot cake and bread.

Well, it turned out they really hadn't… and what I got was a HUGE pile of what was, essentially, crumbly carrot cake fried up French Toast-style. It was okay, but way too much for me to eat, and to be honest a little disappointing. I should have gotten the traditional eggs and homefries.
     (We did end up going to August First the following morning, and found it somewhat less satisfying than we thought it would be, given what we'd read about it online. I had a decent "breakfast sandwich" (eggs, cheese, bacon), but Jeannine's order of peanut butter on toast was a big let-down -- given the kind of home-made, earthy vibe the place had, she expected some kind of robust, fresh-ground peanut butter with an interesting texture... and what she got looked (and tasted) suspiciously like Skippy peanut butter out of a jar from the supermarket.)

While Jeannine headed off to the Book Festival for her first appearance (during which she read one of her picture books), I got my bike out of the truck and pedaled across the street to see what the bike path by the lake was like. It had turned out to be a beautiful day, and there were some views along the path of the lake and the mountains beyond which were quite spectacular. But other than that, it was your basic paved rail trail, with some slightly sketchy sections. Still, it was nice to be out and bicycling, seeing a few new sights. I did stop at a few places to take some photos, including one on a little beach. I liked the look of this gnarly little tree against the expanse of water.

I made it back in time to catch the last part of Jeannine's first panel discussion, which was about teen literature. Here's a shot of the three panelists -- Jo Knowles, Tanya Lee Stone, and Jeannine -- during that discussion.

That was pretty interesting, as was the next event she was part of, the "Super Panel" featuring about ten children's book writers.

Probably the most interesting (to me, anyway) question asked during that panel was something like this: "How long was it between the time you realized you wanted to write children's books and the time you actually sold one?" The answers ranged from a few months to a decade -- a good illustration of the vicissitudes of publishing, and also how timing and luck are almost as important as talent in this field. Come to think of it, in a LOT of fields.

After that panel, Jeannine signed a bunch of her books which were on sale in the lobby, and mingled with other authors and readers for a while. 

     We had discussed going for a bike ride together after her part in  the Book Festival was over -- Jeannine was curious about the bike path -- but we ended up just taking a walk uptown, to Church Street. 

Church Street is one of the neatest things about downtown Burlington -- a stretch of about four or five blocks on one avenue which have been closed off to car traffic and converted into a pedestrian mall, with lots of shops and eateries along the way. We happened upon a restaurant with some outdoor seating and took a chance on it for dinner… and it turned out to have really good food. I cannot, at this time, remember then name of the place, sadly.

We followed that up with a nice stroll back down Church Street and down the hill to the lake, where we discovered that the little ice cream and frozen treat shack near the aquarium was still open, and treated ourselves to a couple of small soft-serve cones before heading back to our hotel room to enjoy a sunset lake view.

On the drive back home the next day, we couldn't help but stop at the Northshire in Manchester again, this time so Jeannine could get in some of her morning writing time while enjoying a latte and one of the Northshire's cafe's baked goods. While she was doing that, I went off on a mission to find more Abe Lincoln stovepipe hats.

Let me back up for a minute -- the previous year, we had visited the Hildene estate, the former home of President Abraham Lincoln's son Robert Todd Lincoln, which is not far from the center of Manchester. It's a very cool place, and in the gift shop there, Jeannine found something she'd been looking for -- an inexpensive version of Lincoln's famed stovepipe hat. She has since used it as a prop when she does talks about her book "Mary Anning and the Sea Dragon", about the young girl in Lyme Regis, England, who discovered some of the earliest and best specimens of prehistoric ocean life… and while prospecting for these fossils in and around the cliffs of Lyme Regis, would wear a stovepipe hat to protect her head from falling rocks.

The hat Jeannine got last year has held up well, but she has been concerned that it might suffer some kind of damage or get lost, and she has not seen these types of props for sale anywhere else. So I figured, why not look where she'd found the first one?

So, while Jeannine was writing, I did… and sure enough, they had five of the hats in the gift shop at Hildene. Success! I ended up buying all of them… and some maple-flavored popcorn for the rest of the ride home, as well. -- PL

Trip to Manchester, VT

Yesterday, Jeannine and I met some friends (old friends for her, new friends for me) at the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, VT. The Northshire is perhaps our favorite bookstore -- I highly recommend it to anyone who loves books (and good food -- they have a very nice cafe). And Manchester is kind of a neat little town -- a slightly odd but charming combination of historic places (perhaps the most prominent being "Hildene", the estate of one of Abraham Lincoln's sons), and modern outlet stores. There is also the beautiful Mount Equinox, the top of which can be reached by an automobile access road (just be sure to take the advice of the signs posted on the access road, and stop halfway down for a few minutes to let your brakes cool down -- the last time we took that trip, I didn't do it, and my car's brake discs -- or probably more likely the brake pads -- were smoking when we got to the bottom).

On this visit to the Northshire Bookstore, I knew Jeannine would be occupied with writing in the bookstore's cafe for several hours, so I decided I would try to see if there were any interesting places to bicycle in the surrounding area. And at www.traillink.com, I found the Delaware and Hudson Rail Trail, a 22.3 mile trail near  the New York border. A rough estimate from looking at the map indicated that it was probably between 10 and 20 miles from Manchester, so that certainly seemed within the realm of practicality and scheduling.

So I hauled a couple of bikes along with us in my truck (just in case one of the friends wanted to join me) and while Jeannine was sipping coffee and turning words into art, I drove over the mountains toward West Rupert, VT, where one of the parking areas for the rail trail was supposed to be found. It was interesting to see that there was still quite a bit of snow up in those hills. Fortunately, none of it remained down at rail trail altitude.

I found the parking spot with no problem, got out my bike, and headed south. I was a little disappointed at first that the trail was not paved (I have gotten a little spoiled, I guess, by the plethora of paved rail trails in our area), but the cinder path surface was actually not bad to ride on… a little bumpy and ragged in spots, but nothing I wouldn't ride on again. 

To the right of the trail, a small river meandered in and out of the fields and trees.

I only rode for out forty-five minutes, given that there was rain predicted, but in that short time I decided that I need to come back to this trail when the weather is nicer and the greenery which gave the "Green Mountain State" that name is out in profusion -- it should be quite beautiful.

Near where I decided to turn around, I saw this view in the small river which followed the trail most of the way:

There's something about that blue green color of turbulent water in the rivers around here… I find it mesmerizing.

I saw no other bicyclists on the path, and only one other person, a man walking his dogs. On the drive back to Manchester, I stopped in a small town called Dorset, because I saw something that caught my eye -- right next to the road, huge blocks of marble and what appeared at first to be a pond surrounded by marble blocks.

But, in fact, it was something else, something illuminated by this sign:

"FIRST MARBLE QUARRY

Oldest Quarry in U.S. 1785

Here, near Mt. Aeolus, Isaac Underhill opened the first marble quarry in 1785. Dorset quarries were most active in early 1800's when small slabs were used for hearths, doorsills and headstones. With better transportation and saw, larger blocks were quarried."

It was odd -- but cool -- that this marble quarry would be literally just a few feet off of a main road in this part of Vermont. I parked the truck and got out to take some photos. 

Here's a small panoramic view of the quarry -- you can see the road, Route 30, I believe, on the right hand side.

I really liked the look of this stack of marble blocks.

I walked to the quarry's edge and stared down into the water… and wondered exactly how deep it was. I felt an irrational pull (easily resisted, I hasten to add) to dive in. As I stood there, I couldn't help thinking of the "… lovely, dark, and deep…" phrase from Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" poem.

This shot I like for the rippling reflections, and the "marble lagoon" look of the place…

 I would have taken even more, and spent more time wandering around there and checking out all the interesting stacks and heaps of gargantuan marble blocks and slabs, but for the fact that there didn't seem to be any LEGAL parking spots near the quarry, which was more than a little odd, given that it was a public attraction. 

I continued on back to Manchester, joined Jeannine to say farewell to our friends (one of whom, a four year-old girl, drew a nifty turtle -- not a ninja turtle -- 

...for me before she left with her parents), and then headed home. On the way out of Manchester and heading toward Bennington, we debated what to do for dinner -- should we continue south on Route 7, the way we'd driven up to Manchester, and stop in Williamstown to eat at my favorite Mexican restaurant, Deperados… or take Route 9 east out of Bennington, and head towards Brattleboro, where we could pick up some yummy deli items at the Vermont Deli, another of our favorite food spots? We opted for the latter.

I wish we had taken our own advice -- just after turning onto Route 9, we were musing that it would probably be a good idea to call the Vermont Deli to make sure that they would be open when we got there. They WOULD have been open -- we got there around 5:30 and their posted hours said they closed at 7 -- but THAT day, of all days, they were closed for "Spring Cleaning"! 

Oh well… "the best laid meal plans" and all that. Even so, it was a fun day. -- PL

Serendipity 2

Back in 2008, I wrote about how Jeannine and I came across a vintage Japanese motorcycle show, completely by accident, while riding bicycles in Northampton's Look Park. I used the word "serendipity" to describe the experience, and noted it is defined by Merriam-Wedster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary as "the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for".

On our trip to Vermont last week, we had two such experiences. One was the unexpected discovery of an A&W roadside drive-in restaurant, complete with young women on roller skates ("car hops", I think they're called) to bring your food order to your car, and set it on a tray hung on your partially rolled-up window. It was also a remarkable coincidence, as just the previous week I had been bemoaning to Jeannine the loss of these very places, and how I had not seen an A&W restaurant in at least the last five years.



(photo by Jeannine)

I had to pull over, of course, and even though it was mid-afternoon and I'd already had lunch, I ordered a hot dog and one of those wonderful root beers A&W is renowned for. The girl who took my order told us that this restaurant was the last of its type in New England.

But before that tasty discovery, we'd had an even more serendipitous experience. On the scenic drive up to Shelburne from Manchester, VT, we'd consulted a touristy map of the area and saw that there were two museums not too far off Route 7 -- the Maple Museum and the Marble Museum. (I later quipped to Jeannine that if there was a type of marble called "maple", that would be a real home run for Vermont.) She wasn't too interested in the Maple Museum, but the Marble Museum sounded kind of intriguing… and, as we were in no hurry, it was not a big deal to get off Route 7 in Rutland and head over on Route 3 to Proctor, VT.




There we found the Maple Museum, a large mill-type building with an imposing stack of marble blocks outside its doors.




Inside, there were many examples of things made from marble -- statuary, furniture, and the like -- and a room with large slabs of marble showing all the different types that Vermont is famous for.

Now here's the serendipity part: There was one room with displays geared mostly towards kids, explaining things like how the geological processes of the Earth produce marble and other rock. And in that room, on the floor behind a simple wooden rail, was this:



I don't recall all the details about this specimen, but I believe it is one of the few articulated (in this case meaning all of the bones were found together and in the proper arrangement) fossil skeletons of a Triceratops ever found. And here it is, on the floor of the Marble Museum in Proctor, VT!



It reminded me very much of another bit of fondly-remembered serendipity from those heady early days of dating Jeannine, when we'd made a plan to drive out to the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, MA. She'd read that an exhibit of masks was on display there and wanted to see them. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, that exhibit had moved on. Since we were already there, we decided we should walk through the museum (which, coincidentally, I'd never been in before, even though I'd lived my entire twenty-eight years at that time not more than an hour's drive away) and see what it had on display.

I walked around one corner and was stunned to see a juvenile Triceratops staring back at me. Or, to be more accurate, a model of a juvenile Triceratops… and right behind it, models of the same beast at earlier stages of its life. That would have been cool enough, but I was even more surprised to read the tags and learn that these were models made for use in an early 1960's adaptation for television of one of my all-time favorite books from my childhood, Oliver Butterworth's "The Enormous Egg". And these things had been in this museum pretty much for my entire life, and I'd never known about them. I was sorry that the mask exhibit that Jeannine wanted to see was no longer there, but I confess that finding those Triceratopses made that day for me.

Well, that, and spending some wonderful time with my lovely wife-to-be. -- PL