I’m afraid I’ve been doing more traveling than blogging of late, and most of the last few months has been devoted to logistics: We bought a trailer and a truck to pull it. We put our house on the market and it’s now under agreement. We put my wife’s parents’ house on the market. We rented the largest storage unit available and stuffed it with stuff. Other stuff has been distributed among family members. It’s been pretty complicated and ambitious, but we’ve made a lot of progress toward going fully mobile, and meanwhile I’ve gotten to know northern New England better.
Last week I took the truck for a short exploration. I visited Montpelier (the nation’s smallest state capital by population) and ferried a bunch of charity cyclists to the northernmost tip of Vermont. Beautiful farm country up there, as the mountains give way to the flatlands of the Champlain and St. Lawrence valleys.
Montreal is just an hour and a half from the Vermont border, so I went up for a brief visit, passing through a tiny rural border crossing. It’s a beautiful city I’ve visited before. One treat this time was my first view of the inside of the Notre Dame Cathedral, an absolutely stunning place.
Then I crossed back into New York at the bigger, I-87 border crossing. Both crossings were quick and uneventful, though I did have to give up an orange to be allowed back into the USA. From there it was a 3-4 hour trek to Saratoga Springs, a historic resort that is now thriving. I made side trips to Albany and to the Saratoga battlefield.
I plan to write about all this in the weeks to come, but for now I’ll just post some pictures.