September 3, 2009
Well, we made it to Burlington. My first impression is good—seems like a very vibrant town. And there are lots of progressive people doing good work. At least it seems like it. I guess only time will tell whether that is real or just an illusion. I will not be surprised either way. My time in Klamath Falls has taught me to go into any situation with as few expectations as possible. I am not sure that completely doing away with expectations is possible, but when I find myself getting too enthusiastic and excited, I remind myself about all I have been through in the past 5 years and I sober up pretty quickly. On the one hand, this is a somewhat effective defense mechanism. On the other, I find it kind of sad that I now live my life expecting disappointment. Maybe I will be able to get past that someday.
We had an interesting first afternoon. We got to the campground where we'd planned to stay and found out that they only had a campsite available for Thursday night and Friday night. So we had to find somewhere else to go on Saturday for the rest of the holiday weekend. All of the other area campgrounds were also full.
So we found the library and so I could connect to the web and search for a place to stay. I found a few that were outrageously expensive, but at least it was something. I found a place that was cheaper, but the website didn't have any way to check for availability. So we went outside and called before we left our parking spot. The guy said he had a room, so we went over and he let us look at it. It was shabby, and not what I normally would've chosen, but it was clean enough. So we reserved it. Then we found the grocery store.
By then we were able to get into our campsite, so we went and set up. It's a fairly nice place.
Later, we walked down the trail to see Lake Champlain. What a beautiful site. We're all pretty tired, so it will probably be an early night.
