Under the Vermont Sun

***WARNING: This blog entry is fully-loaded with colorful photos and is ridiculously long.***

Once upon a time, in a land up north, a kind gentlemanly gentleman helped his young, fabulous, super good-looking, ridiculously witty and hilarious wife celebrate her 24th birthday. He whisked her away to a land further up north taking her along windy roads lined with bright colored trees with sparkling clear water to the side.

Okay, that's about all of that I can muster. Flowery language, pah, who needs it! In case you couldn't decipher the Shakespearean-esque paragraph above, here is how the weekend went:

We woke up bright and early on Saturday morning and Kent straightened up the house while I neatly and strategically packed our bag for the weekend. Our beautiful, shiny, new Jeep drove us all the way to Wakefield, NH where we stopped at the Miss Wakefield Diner for a real breakfast. The waitresses were what Kent likes to call "surly" I just say they are energetic girls stuck in a small, quiet town. I must admit that they were much more interested in the 45-year-old regulars sitting at the counter than us. But we managed to enjoy ourselves anyway.
















And of course it wouldn't be a New Hampshire diner without a huge moose out front.









We continued our scenic drive up through New Hampshire and turned on to the Kancamangus Highway, which is a pleasantly situated route that takes you through miles and miles of trees, water, and mountains. Ladies and gentleman, this is the White Mountain Region.













Periodically along the Kancamangus are these spots to pull over, some more established than others. This one is Rocky Gorge. I guess they used to allow people to swim here a while ago, but then some silly chick couldn't quite handle the rapids and now there is NO swimming, not even for Kent. He was very sad about that...in fact, he couldn't even bear to read the whole news story the had posted about the incident. Beside being a death trap, Rocky Gorge did have some scenic vistas...

Kent really wanted to take a hike to get some better panoramic views so we stopped off at Mt. Potash. Our nice stroll through woods turned out to be not so much of a stroll...

We were lost in the thick trees for a while, but eventually Kent found an open ledge where I was nervous living on the edge, but he was able to enjoy his view.
















We finished our drive along the Kancamangus and over the mountain pass. Once we were back on a major interstate (I-93) we were able to visit the Old Man in the Mountain, who recently suffered from a botched face lift. He should really sue the plastic surgeon...




Then it was off to the Vermontian countryside. But first we had to satisfy Kent's extreme hunger for industrial buildings and trains in St. Johnsbury, which is where we crossed over into the land of cheese.












Naturally we found our way to Cabot Creamery to see the house that cheese built. Cabot Creamery is found in Cabot, VT named after some guy's girlfriend a million years back or so. I learned that interesting tidbit during the video portion of the factory tour. The tour was a bit limited, but it's cool to see the big tables of cheese they make...Can't catch me I'm the stinky cheese man.






After nibbling some cheese, we were forced out by a busload of crazy seniors (and not the fun or high school kind) who rudely showed up by the busload and didn't call ahead to give any warning. We left Cabot in our dust and continued west to Stowe, where we would be staying in the Honeywood Inn. We arrived after dark, and lights out means lights out. There were no street lamps along the road, and lighted signs are apparently optional, so it made for some interesting navigating. Needless to say, Kent got really good at his 3-point turn.

We had dinner the first night at a place called Cactus Cafe. It was neither a Cactus or a Cafe, so I think it's a bit misleading. They did have some rather tasty mexican food, although a bit overpriced. I guess that's what you get in resort towns. Once we got back we took a dip in the the hot tub, and I say dip because it was only deep enough to stick in one toe at a time.

Sunday we took it easy and were pleasantly surprised to find that the breakfast portion of the Bed and Breakfast was full service. They even gave us like 4 different hot options! I opted for the Apple Pancakes while Kent stuck with the tried and true scrambled eggs.

After showers and digestion we headed up into the mountains for a refreshing morning walk. Once again our walk was a little more than we bargained for, but at least this one had a clearly marked trail. We ended up at the top of Smuggler's Notch, which is a ski resort. Kent insisted on risking his life by climbing up to the top of the ski lift, (in wet sneakers mind you!) and couldn't quite grasp why I wouldn't look up and smile...











After the hike we were ready for an afternoon nap, so we drove down to the Waterbury Resevoir and picked out a nice spot on the grass. We lucked out with some beautiful weather, and it was nice to stay outside and rest up. We were run out of the park by yappy dogs and screaming children and decided to stop in downtown Stowe to check it out. They had an adorable looking covered pedestrian bridge and an old-fashioned general store. They also had a wire giraffe standing out front of their Town Hall, which I still can't figure out...



We ended up at Pie in the Sky for pizza. This place is owned and run by hippies. They all had long, curly hair, some with dreds and they all smelled like hemp. In other words, not my normal crowd. But true to form, they were very peaceful and provided some pretty tasty pizza. Once we were back in our room, we watched the Red Sox game while Kent clobbered me in Scrabble. Just as a side note: Kent only wins because he gets lucky with points. He'll put down a 3 letter word and get 25 points while I come up with these awesome words and stretch out the board. I just thought everyone should know.

Monday morning led us to another hot breakfast (Blueberry Waffles - Kent, French Toast - Mel) and check out from the Honeywood Inn. On our way out of Vermont we stopped by the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Factory. Let me just say I was a bit disappointed. First, they don't really produce ice cream for the company here. Secondly, on this particular day they weren't producing ANY ice cream at all. NONE. Not a single scoop. They told us the Factory Tour would consist of an additional video to show the production process. L-A-M-E. So we looked around the gift shop and then peaced-out of there. LOL









All in all the birthday was great. We had beautiful weather, beautiful foliage, and beautiful company. Aaaahhh. We made excellent time home and then met up later with my sister Amber and roommate Michelle for some yummy pasta for a birthday dinner. Then Kent had made me an excellent chocolate cake, so that made dessert.

And no, I won't tell you what I wished for.

The Latest AP Rankings

While we wait for Mel's monumental, epic post that details last weekend in Vermont (due out April 2008), I will keep the masses at bay with a post.

I started looking at Heidi's blog and noticed that even though I hadn't checked it in a week, it still somehow seemed to have new posts! Heidi is turning into a blog-maniac, so I decided to reward her dedication with a comment on EVERY SINGLE POST SHE HAS EVER DARED TO POST. You all can visit her blog by clicking on this link approximately here -->

I also am calling all ALL HANSENS AND MCKINNONS that have access to the World Web Internets to start their own bloggle. As I said in one of Heidi's posts, they need to get on the blogball. If blogball was a sport (and it soon will be), then Heidi would be a consensus number 1 in our family:

1. Heidi
2. Kent and Mel
3. Liesl
4. Grandma Hansen (for not knowing how to use the Interweb).
Others receiving votes: Nobody!!!!

I would say that Holly, Kurt and/or Alice, Michelle, and even JoEllen need to get on the blogball and start up your blog. You don't need to feel pressure because Heidi is a blog powerhouse, posting every month is probably a realistic place to start. I'm not calling out Kristie because I believe they still have dial-up. They're like the Slowskis. Sorry and/or my bad. I love quoting commercials.

In the spirit of the most awesomest season of all (Fall-rhymes! Ha!), I have decided to rank my favorite seasons:

I would have to rank my seasons thusly:

Rank Season Previous
1. Fall (13) 3
2. Summer (5) 1
3. Spring (2) 2
4. Winter (1) 4
Others receiving votes: Indian Summer 12, Brigham Young 5, Canadian Spring 3, Eastern Illinois 1.

Back in the day, Fall was chunt because that meant the beginning of school, which, of course, sucks. Summer was awesome because there was no school, duh and/or of course. Now that I have to go to work year-round, I like Fall the best because of the crispness. Summer is pretty nice, too, although a bit muggy sometimes, but going to the beach in New England is pretty fun. Spring is enjoyable for like 3 weeks at most, usually we get a lot of rain and cold and gloom. The only plus about winter is snowboarding, but I only go like 10 times a year, and 10 days is not going to make up for an entire season.

Coming soon: TV show rankings!

Gallavanting around the north shore

I gave Mellif a good 3 days to write about last Saturday's excursion, but she hasn't gotten around to it, so here we go.

The weather finally chilled out and we decided to go out apple-picking and pumpkining. Ever since we got the new horseless carriage, we've been aching to go on drives. Let me tell you something, sir: Massachusetts's North Shore is a beautiful place, that's for shore. Ha!

First stop: Russell Farm in Ipswich. We battled my arch nemesis Route 1A to arrive at the oh-so-scenic farm sitch-ee-ated about 100 hops, skips, and jumps away from the ocean, if you're the world-record holder in the triple jump. I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only was Russell Farm a place to find apples and pumpkins, it also housed the largest pig I dared ever to lay eyes on! This pig's floppy ears were bigger than my head, and the sucker weighed 1000 pounds. He just sat there like a lazy lummox until I yelled at him to justify his existence and come out from the depths and put away the cottage cheeseries and mow the lawn. Which he did. Promptly.

Also seen at Russell Farm: A mini hoss, a regular-sized hoss, 4 Charlie Browns (goats), lambs (no lions), a few rabbits, a quite large turkey, and chickens with Large Talons. However, we looked and looked and so no sign of Russell! Russell has quite the reputation for shirking, and it was only noonish, so I'm sure he was just barely crawling out of bed to begin his 6-hour piano practicing.

After admiring the animals, we took a hayride, which I had never done. It was enjoyable, although "hayride" is a bit of a misnomer, it's more of a ride in a wagon and you sit on a bale of hay while the kids on the wagon take pictures of you. It pretty much just cruised around the orchard. We weren't allowed to pick apples, because they had already mostly been picked, although I did see some major dabstances left behind on the trees. I think it funny that I used to HATE picking apples, especially at the Church Welfare farms (not nearly as much as I hated picking cherries, especially in the Goodwin's backyard), but now I was bummed that I couldn't pick apples.

The big theme of the day was "appreciation". I definitely appreciate going out to the country a lot more now and I try to soak in the beauty as much as I can. I am also trying to appreciate our hossless carriage, seeing as it's the nicest car (by far!) that I've ever owned and I'm trying to take care of it. My biggest appreciation is my wife: I try to appreciate her every second of every day, because I am extremely lucky to have her.

Anyway, that's enough of THAT. Back to the tomfoolery. Russell Farm has an extensive market with all sorts of apple-related products like cider and sauce and even apple donuts (deliciousness!), but the only thing NOT overpriced were the apples (and the hayride-only 1 dollar!). As my siblings will agree, you get used to paying a lot more for inferior products (technical term: getting ripped-off) out in the East, so seeing something that's NOT a rip-off is quite a pleasant surprise. So we grabbed a couple dozen apples and a half-dozen donuts and even picked up 1/6-dozen pumpkins. The pumpkins were like me: huge, intelligent, and funny. I won't mention that I had a pretty hard time carrying them out to the car. Pretend I didn't mention that.

After leaving Russell Farm, we headed out on my arch-ally, Route 127. Route 127 is a little windy road that passes lots of scenic stuff and has no traffic lights, unlike Route 1A, which is the route of all evil, hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Wooo! Anyway, that landed us right at Gloucester Harbor (pronounced Glou-steh hah-bah), which looked cool enough, so we parked right there next to the statue and went for a walk.

What started as a pleasant walk next to the harbor ended as we walked right into the middle of a worldwide cyclocross competition. This competition had a little of everything: off-road, on-road, sandpits, tight turns, long stretches, uphill, downhill, even a part where you have to carry your bike up a hill. It was the coolest course I have EVER seen. We watched it until the winner finished and headed home.


These dudes totally almost ran us over. Like, totally.


Here is the course that winds through the park and such.


The lovely Mellif mocking the duck. Poor duck.


Can you find Kent? Huh, can you? He looks just like the pumpkins!

And now, the obligatory web cartoon, reminding me of Jo's experience at the Texas State Fair.

New car!!!!!! Folksy, folksy!!!!!!!

That is right, folks, we bought a new car on Sept. 29th. It isn't brand SPANKIN' new, just new to us. We sold Mel's SOB Saab to some sucker after selling my 4Runner to an even bigger sucker who only had 9 fingers. I did not notice the missing finger until I felt his stump during the hand shake that makes the deal "official". My transaction was with these shady Latinos who could barely speak English, but who spoke the international language. The InterNATIONAL language. Love. Or money. They gave me a fistful of Benjamins and I scampered off to the nearest bank to cash them in before they could rob me.

Anyhoo, we both decided we like the newer Jeep Grand Ol' Cherokees (it's a high-flyin' Cherokee) so we checked out cars.com, autotrader.com, and vehix.com (your roadmap to the automotive world). Cars.com had a huge selection so we did our homework and set off on that Saturday with pre-approved E-loan in hand to use as leverage.

The first place we looked was in Dorchester, the town with the highest homicide rate in the Boston area. These Jeeps came equipped with machine guns on the roof and hood, as well as full armor and ejection seats (optional). It was a bee-you-tiful day and the guy who approached us on the lot seemed like he was more or less honest. And by "more or less honest" I mean he was a total scumbag. "Jim" played the "no pressure" card, which of course means he pressured us in different ways. While we were out on our test drive-areeno, Jim called these other dealerships that we told him we'd be looking at to see what their documentation fee was.

For those of you who don't know what a documentation fee is for, it's really the modern-day "rust-proofing", where they charge you 300 bucks for the privilege to buy a car from them. When we got back, Jim told us his story of how evasive the other dealer was being and pushy and all that stuff, pretty much defaming the poor guy, all the whilst telling us he's the only honest guy in town. Then he took us into his office and crunched the numbers. Jim was asking a good 2 grand more than the other dealerships and not really making any concessions, so I politely told him no, but then he brought in the manager/owner/big shot dude to try and convince us. They were trying to play the "We may cost more, but our service is even worse!" card with us, not budging on price, so this time I put both Jim and Tim (probably not his name) in a headlock while Mel gave them both firm noogies.

We went to the next place on our list, which is in the outlying town Franklin. The salesman who helped us had the name of David Hansen, with an "E", mind you, and he was quite gregarious. He showed us pretty much the same exact car as the one in Dorchester, but this one was 2 grand cheaper and did not have a glaring scratch on the passenger side. It did have 8,000 more miles on it, however.

We then wanted to check out this 3rd dealership, but before we left, David showed us a model that had leather seats (I'm actually not a fan of leather, but they come with heated seats, so that's a nice offer in Boston), a sunroof, and 10k less miles. It did cost 3 grand more, but this car was something we were really excited about. So we went through the negosh process, got the price to come down a grand, and then got the financing through this really slimy character ("Snake") who had a voice like grinding gravel and tatts over every exposed inch of skin not on his face. His office had all sorts of certificates and awards on it, and those corny pictures with his family that you take before you go on amusement park rides or at prom where they put you in front of those fake sets and you pretend like you're having a great time:
He gave us the dreaded "Get the Warranty OR ELSE" speech, where they go through the scenarios of things that could happen if you don't buy their expensive warranty. Since half the reason we bought such a new model was to be able to have the factory warranty for at least 2.5 years, I said no. Then Snake told me this story: "That Tahoe I have out back, just last week I had 3600 dollars worth of repairs that only cost me 100 bucks, and they gave me a rental car, too."

I hate that story. You know it's not completely true. First of all, just last week? Really? What a coincidence! What story did you tell the other people that came in before that happened? Secondly, 3600 dollars? That's a LOT of repairs. What on earth did you do to your car? So I think 2 years ago he had a repair for 360 dollars and he had to pay the 100 dollar deductible. I HATE the warranty speech. I told him about the fact Mel had a warranty on her Saab that never seemed to cover anything. He came back with the "5,007 parts Super Duper Warranty" which listed EVERY single part that it covers. Snake drilled us on what Mel's Saab warranty didn't cover, I felt like I was under the hot light. "Pretty hot in here now, isn't it? Betcha didn't think about all FIVE THOUSAND AND SEVEN PARTS, did you? You sicken me!!"

Ugh. I absolutely ABHOR the warranty speech. After I say the final "No", Snake looked at me like I just signed my own suicide note. I mean, warranties are good, but we ALREADY had one on all the big parts anyway. Once our 3 years are up (March 2010), then I might extend it, but not before then.

So we finally got our car, and so far we love it. It kinda smells too much like cleaner, but hopefully that disappears soon. Here it is, sneaking up on the fishermen's wives statue.

Melrose Place

Kent thinks he's so funny...Some of us have to do real work during the day rather than kill all the hours surfing the net...

Anyway, about a week ago we (mostly I) celebrated our 3 month anniversary by taking a nice stroll into downtown Melrose. There is a really cute (dare I say it!) Main Street that has brick front buildings and looks just as a town center should. So we walked down Main Street and had dinner at Turner's Seafood. When we moved into the new apartment they gave us a gift certificate, so we figured it was worth trying out.

Kent wanted to take some pictures of the surroundings so you could all see just how adorable our new town of Melrose is. This way maybe we can inspire some of you to come for a visit...


Our front door is in a hallway (much like a hotel) so this is our apartment, or atleast the bottom half with the sliding door. But we do have a nicely secluded "yard" area.

Our apartment building with some of the complex. The actual complex is pretty large, and they're still planning to build more buildings.
One of the old factories and/or industrial buildings nearby. A lot of these have been converted into offices or shops.
The commuter rail stop in Melrose. We like how the station looks all old-timey and such.
A view of Main Street, Melrose. Of course, it would be much more scenic without the cars, but what can you do?

After Dinner Smile

The Boston, MA Temple at night. We went to the temple on Saturday and got to do baptisms. It was nice to be at the temple again especially since at that time I wasn't sure if my Grandpa had passed away or not. It turns out that while we were inside my parents were trying to call me to tell me he had, so it was kind of nice to be in such a quiet, sacred place.

Another photo to show off Kent's photographic skills....

P.S. If anyone knows how to get the pictures to go the right direction in the blog, PLEASE, let me know.