The Day After...And The New Beginning!

This morning we woke up in Boston. The flight here last night was delayed an hour, but Cary kept me calm and reminiscing about the big party we just had.

The morning was one I had never experienced before: just after we landed here (about 10:30 p.m.) we waited in the brisk cold for our bus. There was some snow around the city, but nothing like this morning. A Nor'easter had blown through during the night, and Cary and I woke up to so much white! The air was so thick with the snow that you couldn't even see the airplanes at the airport from our hotel room window, which was only about 150 yards away!

We spent our morning watching the snow. The most entertaining part was watching the Bobcats and trucks with the plows run along in the parking lot and scoop up the snow. The Bobcats turned the tightest circles, and the snow was so heavy that it would be on 2 wheels at some point! The trucks would drive at about 15-20 miles an hour, scoop up the snow, and then run directly into the curb to dump the snow...no brakes applied!

After a little time of watching this, Cary and I decided that we were hungry and made our way downstairs to the breakfast buffet...a FABULOUS spread which consisted of eggs, bacon (actually every breakfast meat imaginable), bagels (and again, every pastry imaginable), fruit, cereal, milk, juice, and the most bizarre--sushi!!!! It was really delicious--and it should be: $20/plate!!!! Needless to say, we tried our hardest to eat our money's worth!

After eating, the roads were still too white and the snow falling too hard for us to think about leaving the hotel. Cary was smart and asked to book us for 2 nights, just in case we could not get out. We wandered the hotel for a while, going into the gift shop and looking over everything at least twice (and slowly!) before making our way out. Good way to spend 30 minutes!!! We found the conference rooms, but they were locked, stared at the scary Nutcracker (from behind he looked like a demon!) and then went back to the room. There, we found Beverly Hills Cop on tv. Within 5 minutes, we were both asleep again!

Once we woke up around 1:00, we viewed the weather and decided that the streets were clear and that we should give it a 'go' to try to get to Woodstock. We got to the car rental place and found the car they put aside for us, all snow dusted off. So, we jumped it to head off.

When we got to the checkout booth at the exit, though, the lady who checked the tags told us that this SUV was scheduled to go to the dealership for maitenance. Nothing special about this, except we had to go back to get another one. And as she told us this, a snowplow drove by. She saw this ahead of time at started yelling "Ice! Ice!!" By the time we realized what was happening, though, the truck drove by, spraying dirty ice and snow all over the car and inside her booth. It was such a funny moment!

We finally got our next vehicle, and were finally on our way around 1:45. This vehicle wasn't too bad, except that the windshield kept freezing and the wipers were poor and needed to be replaced. The solution we had for this was to drive with the heater/defroster all the way up and the windows opened slightly so we could get some fresher (and cooler) air.

The roads were covered with snow, and at some points we were ahead of the snowplow, so we drove slowly in a single lane behind other cars. There were moments that you could see the road, and apparently the 'one lane' was actually 2 with the separation lines in the middle. It was fun driving that way...I felt like we were getting away with bad driving!

At some point there was a snowplow on the shoulder of the road and ice and snow flying up in the air, dropping in the middle of the road. Cary and I saw other cars drive through it, so he followed suite. Well, it turns out that rocks were also flying out of the snow plow! No damage was done, but Cary made sure he didn't do that again!

We finally made it into Woodstock around 5:45, after stopping on the road and giving the windshield a good scraping. During that moment, we were in New Hampshire, and he was debating on stopping for the night because it was starting to get dark. When we looked at the map, though, he realized that we were only about 30 minutes from our destination, and continued on.

The moment we drove over the bridge into Vermont and headed down the road toward our tiny town, I saw a change in Cary. Earlier on the road, he was noticibly calm as he concentrated on the drive (and I don't blame him--it was a first for me to be in that scenario!). Now he began talking quickly and excitedly about the town we were about to see, as well as Quechee Gorge, and the memories he had from being there before (including the summer).

We finally made it to the house he had rented for the week. From the outside, it was a cute, small white house, with bushes decorated with Christmas lights. But because of the storm, there was a thick blanket of snow on it.

We stepped inside and saw such a beautiful house. Upstairs was the kitchen and living room, complete with 1/2 bath tucked away in the corner, and a beautiful glowing fireplace. Apparently, this fireplace was the heating system for the entire house. The higher the fire, the warmer the house.

We made our way downstairs where we checked out 2 bedrooms. One of the rooms had the bed built up in a little closed in space by the window. The other bedroom was the master bedroom, large with a small sitting area.

After we checked out the house briefly, we decided to go find food for the night. Cary drove us to a little supermarket called Mac's. Here, we bought some supplies for breakfast and dessert (Ben & Jerry's!). Everything else was closed except for a pizza joint, so we drove over there and ordered a pizza (and met a huge friendly fish as well!). We finished off the night taking the pizza home and eating it and watched a little tv.