Burlington, VT
Mike was originally going to fly back from Plattsburgh, NY, but there were some issues about all the connections that were needed and Maxx in a doggie carry bag…something that we had no experience with and could have turned out Tasmanian Devil bad. So he decided to rent a car and drive home, but turns out that there are very few places that will rent you a car in one state for drop off in another state, so we had to redirect our travels toward Burlington, Vermont. No problem…what do we care, it is all part of the adventure, and I was very happy to have the excuse to see Burlington. Enroute to the ferry to cross Lake Champlain, was an interesting natural phenomenon billed as the Little Grand Canyon of the East, AKA Ausable Chasm, NY. We decided that we needed to check that out, and were pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t just a tourist trap. There was a pretty hefty fee for taking a simple hike through the chasm, but it turned out that the cost was well worth it and easily justifiable given that they have had to rebuild the trails, bridges, and cliff-hanging walkways a number of times in the past 15 years with massive floods that keep wiping everything out (wouldn’t want to be down there when a flash flood arrives). The walk was great, the scenery was beautiful and we discovered at the end that the 20 minute raft or inner-tube ride down the rapids would have likely been a fun addition to our ticket, especially as warm as it was. The chasm by the way was formed over millions of years from water pressure caused by the river that flows through sandstone, causing collapses of the harder rock types until eventually the chasm that we experienced was well formed. The ferry crossing point was only a couple miles away and was a fun hour long cruise down the middle of an extremely large lake with a drop off downtown Min St. Burlington, Vermont. The city is built around the edge of the lake with Main St. running 2 blocks and parallel to the lake edge. Apparently Burlington is the smallest capital city of any state capital, and the largest city in Vermont, and the smallest of all cities billed as the largest for their state. Fun useless facts, but did describe Burlington quite well. The airport where Mike picked up his car felt just like the Arcata / Eureka airport in my tiny Northern California college town of Humboldt. Turned out that Mike’s trip home took him 10 hours, so we had in effect traveled for about 10 days to cover about 10 hours worth of geographical distance…and now I continue the adventure on my own.
Mike was originally going to fly back from Plattsburgh, NY, but there were some issues about all the connections that were needed and Maxx in a doggie carry bag…something that we had no experience with and could have turned out Tasmanian Devil bad. So he decided to rent a car and drive home, but turns out that there are very few places that will rent you a car in one state for drop off in another state, so we had to redirect our travels toward Burlington, Vermont. No problem…what do we care, it is all part of the adventure, and I was very happy to have the excuse to see Burlington. Enroute to the ferry to cross Lake Champlain, was an interesting natural phenomenon billed as the Little Grand Canyon of the East, AKA Ausable Chasm, NY. We decided that we needed to check that out, and were pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t just a tourist trap. There was a pretty hefty fee for taking a simple hike through the chasm, but it turned out that the cost was well worth it and easily justifiable given that they have had to rebuild the trails, bridges, and cliff-hanging walkways a number of times in the past 15 years with massive floods that keep wiping everything out (wouldn’t want to be down there when a flash flood arrives). The walk was great, the scenery was beautiful and we discovered at the end that the 20 minute raft or inner-tube ride down the rapids would have likely been a fun addition to our ticket, especially as warm as it was. The chasm by the way was formed over millions of years from water pressure caused by the river that flows through sandstone, causing collapses of the harder rock types until eventually the chasm that we experienced was well formed. The ferry crossing point was only a couple miles away and was a fun hour long cruise down the middle of an extremely large lake with a drop off downtown Min St. Burlington, Vermont. The city is built around the edge of the lake with Main St. running 2 blocks and parallel to the lake edge. Apparently Burlington is the smallest capital city of any state capital, and the largest city in Vermont, and the smallest of all cities billed as the largest for their state. Fun useless facts, but did describe Burlington quite well. The airport where Mike picked up his car felt just like the Arcata / Eureka airport in my tiny Northern California college town of Humboldt. Turned out that Mike’s trip home took him 10 hours, so we had in effect traveled for about 10 days to cover about 10 hours worth of geographical distance…and now I continue the adventure on my own.
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