Despite a noisy AC unit and shades that wouldn’t close, our exhaustion enabled us to sleep through the night. Perhaps the abysmal air quality from distant wildfires also conked us out a bit. We woke up in time to have the Hampton Inn’s breakfast which didn’t dazzle, but that was to be expected. At 10:30, we waited in the lobby for the shuttle back to Albany airport that eventually left almost twenty minutes late. There was a line of about 30 people to rent a car from Budget/Avis, but luckily as a loyal Fastbreak customer, I could skip the line and head straight to the lot.
While I was served almost immediately without much drama, the surrounding environs were stereotypically east coast. There were people screaming at each other and blaring horns for rather trivial reasons. We were relieved to exit the parking garage and get away from all the trash. It was a relatively short thirty minute drive from the Albany airport to Saratoga Springs. Having flown into Albany, a new itinerary presented itself.
Saratoga Springs is known for its horse racing and there was evidently a race that day, perhaps one of the reasons for our higher-than typical hotel rates last night. There was also a Phish concert. So we have either horse people or potheads to blame for all this. I don’t think there’s too much overlap between those two subcultures. Anyway, we parked at Congress Park and walked through the town. It was quite lively. We each got lost in a bookstore for a spell before grabbing lunch at the Bread Basket Bakery, the only place in town where we could get a table.
On our way out of town, we made a brief stop at Yaddo and its gardens. It is a famous retreat for artists and writers. Overcast skies threatened the whole morning, but we didn’t encounter any rain until we continued our drive on into Vermont. It took us about an hour to reach the Hill Farm outside of Manchester, Vermont. We are staying in a sort of farmhouse inn that is a working farm with numerous vegetables and apparently . . .alpacas.
We explored the property a bit. As Nicole is now officially 40, she has taken up a hobby in horticulture. I am in to birding. It was inevitable. We had a bit of time to kill before our dinner reservation at 5:15pm. This is, naturally, an elder person’s dinner time, but it was also all that was available.
Naturally, the on-site restaurant is farm-to-table given that it is, in fact, on a farm. We split a salad and had pizzas. In the interest of accuracy, Nicole did not technically have a margherita pizza this time. It was pomodoro — really pushing the boundaries of her comfort zone. For dessert, we had a brownie sundae, which somehow they knew was for Nicole’s birthday. I guess it was entered as “occasion” during the online reservation, but I was still surprised that they even saw that and remembered when they brought it out. Good on them.
Feeling over fed post-dinner, we took turns using the toilet back at the room before emerging to watch the last hints of light fade away behind the old barn. The air quality index in these parts seems to be a bit better than yesterday when we smelled smoke at the airport. We drove off to get some beverages from a Stewart’s before settling in for the night. A passing rain shower let us know that we can’t trust any further weather forecasts for this area.
We then went to the main farmhouse to throw some darts and shoot some pool — neither game being played with its official rules. My very first dart toss was basically dead center, but it would deteriorate from there. Nevertheless, it needed to be documented to appear that I am totes good at darts. After a mildly competitive game of pool, we retired to our room where the power immediately went out. Last time this happened in Tunisia, men were frantically checking fuses, bringing us candles, and apologizing profusely. In this situation, there was no one here to do any of that because only eight people live in Vermont and there’s not a full time staff at the Hill Farm.
There was widespread confusion amongst our fellow guests and rumors of moving us into the other building that had a generator. This did not sound ideal. Incidentally, Nicole was plugging in a device at the same time the power went out, so she was concerned she was the cause of the outage. I was skeptical, but Nicole nevertheless felt like Kevin Bacon as Jack Swigert in Apollo 13.
The rumor was that a car hit a utility pole and took out the electricity in the area. Given that we are in the middle of nowhere, we didn’t expect a rapid response. We went to the inn with the generator just to charge devices and post blogs when we found a man who was the drinks manager at the restaurant suddenly finding himself thrust into the role of divvying out new rooms for those without power. He offered us a key to a room just for the night (assuming the power comes back tomorrow). Anyway, happy birthday to Nicole! — lover of travel, adventure, and an all around good sport.
Follow Up! — We showered and charged electronics in our new room in the main building. Shortly after midnight, I noticed the lights flicker. I went outside to assess if power was restored in our own building and it was. And thusly, we walked back over to our old room to settle in for the night . . .again.
passports & pepto bismol 