T+148: The Real Deal and ….Really?

T+148: The Real Deal and Really?

We mount our bicycles at the top of Sherburne Pass.  (The town of Killington was originally named Sherburne, but it was too easily confused with other names, so it officially changed its name just a few years ago.  The pass has kept its original name.)  It is distinctly chilly, although the sun is out.  I don’t have gloves or mittens.  Wes has gloves to put over his bike gloves, but for reasons unknown does not put them on. The ride down is fast and cold.  By the time we reach the valley floor, we are both bringing our hands to our body’s core to warm them up. 

This is a beautiful part of the country.  The valleys are cut with rivers; the mountains rise steeply and glow bright yellow and red above us.  My ability to enjoy this beauty is being hampered, however, by how cold I am.  At a corner, about 5 miles below the summit, I pull in to a sports shop, where I buy a pair of ski gloves with photo sensing. (So I can use my phone without taking my gloves off).  

As we come out of the shop, we look across the highway and see a house completely off its foundation.  The houses and barns next to it have obviously just undergone a major renovation.  The shoulder of the road, which had been excellent, now is patchy.  Parts of it have fallen into the Ottaqueechee River.  The traffic is fairly heavy, but we soldier on, seeing more and more signs of something amiss:  another building off its foundation, strange dark marks high on the side of a barn, the width of the road strangely narrow. 

I see the name of a furniture builder I recognize from the pages of Old House Journal in a re-purposed warehouse not too far from Woodstock.  I call a halt, and under Wes’s protestation, tell him I want to visit the workshops of Thomas Shackleton Furniture.  Housed in a former wool mill, the factory and showroom were a fascinating visit.   After viewing the handmade furniture and pottery, we stopped upstairs to see the workrooms.  There, we encountered two young people in the midst of hand-building two pieces of furniture.  I stay and watch for a long while.  Wes goes to look at the artwork downstairs.

The young woman, dark haired and long limbed, was using a hand planer to shave the smallest edges from the footboard of cherry sleigh bed.  A young man, massively built, and wearing a bandanna over his balding head, is working on a walnut sideboard.  He is carefully chiseling dovetail joints to construct an upper drawer.   I find out that each piece of furniture is made by one person from start to finish.  The individual builder meets with the wood supplier, and sources the specific wood for each piece.  The builder preps and cuts the wood, then hand builds and finishes each piece.  I say, “It must be so satisfying to see a piece from idea to shipment.”  They both nod vigorously; she says it is one of the main things that keeps them going through years of apprenticeship, becoming a journeyman (person?) and finally mastering the art. 

He tells a story about friends who want him to make them furniture.  When confronted with the price of a handmade piece of furniture, they are shocked and say they will just get a piece from Ikea.   I tell them I think Ikea is a form of “classy trash”—it is visually very well designed, but made of the cheapest materials and scantiest structures.  Ikea won’t last the decade: the works made by these young artisans will be given to the purchaser’s grandchildren.  As I get ready to leave, the young man notes: “Usually, it is the husband who stays to talk to us.”  I note: “I am ten times the gear head that Wes is.”  He says, “Well, that is what it takes.”

Before I leave, I ask about the Shackleton name and find out that Thomas Shackleton was indeed cousin to Ernest Shackleton, of the ill-fated Endurance voyage to Antarctica.  In that trip, the ship was frozen in the ice for months on end, but Ernest Shackleton was able to save his entire crew through great personal heroism and effort.  Making furniture from tree to truck may not be as dangerous as sailing to the Antarctic, but it is heroic in its own right in this age of flashy trash and corporate consumerism.

Back on the road, Wes thanks me for making him go to this workshop.  We keep following the river, with the shoulder becoming more and more suspect.  We round a corner, and see the Woodstock Farmers’ Market.  There are lots of cars, but we are suckers for hand raised foods, so we stop, despite our intentions to keep moving. 

As we are parking our bikes, we notice a hand-drawn sign on the backside of the red clapboard building.  Well above my height is a scrawled note, “Hurricane Irene water level.”   We peer at the note, and look around at the surrounding buildings, seeing the tell-tale signs of high water on the market and the adjacent building, which houses a glass workshop and artist studios. One of the store manager comes out.  We ask her about the sign and she tells us that the water had completely crossed the road.  They had to do major renovations just to get open again, but were lucky compared to some. 

We get some rolls and cheese in the tourist packed market and go down the road to a series of tables next to the river.  I go in to get soup for lunch and discover that this business had been completely swept away in the flood.  It is hard to imagine the sweet small river on which we are sitting raging with such force.   As we are eating, I realize that we have now completed 4000 miles.  We take pictures in front of the river and think about my brother Steve and the recovery they’re facing.

Because this is the Columbus holiday weekend, the pretty town of Woodstock is full of people, buses, cars, and bikes.  The Columbus holiday passes with very little notice in other parts of the United States, but here in New England and Upstate New York, it is a big deal, although it could be more accurately called “Leaf Peepers Weekend.”  Making our way through this crush is no fun, but I call a halt to Wes as we go by a particularly intriguing local art store.  We go in and are very struck by the high quality of the artwork.  Both Wes and I stare at a beautiful print of aspens next to a frozen lake with the mountains in the distance.  It is fairly rare that Wes and I both get “beeped” by an artwork.  We try to listen to these impulses, but this is not exactly the right moment to buy a piece of art.  We walk away, as we usually do, to see if the image stays with us.   We walk through the throngs, and check out a few stores.  The town reminds us of Aspen—not at all in the way it looks, of course—but in the sophistication and expense of its goods and the profound sense of place in its design and layout.   As we walk along, we become more committed to the artwork and decide, “What the hell?  Let this be the one memento of our trip.”

Back at the store, we make arrangements for the print to be shipped to Wyoming.  We have a long conversation with the store owner who was a longtime resident of Detroit.  As usual, we have to allay her fears about the destruction of the city.  She had many wonderful memories of her time there; she had lived on the far southeast of the city and in Indian Village.   She had heard that there were even more artists in the city than when she was there.  She compared the situation in Detroit to New York City in the 1970’s, when that city was its most dysfunctional and yet a haven for young artists.   

After our purchase, we return to the traffic.  As we pass a covered bridge, I see a road on the other side of the river.  I use my newly discovered mapping program to take us to the “road less traveled.”   There we ride up and down hills through tiny villages and little farms under glorious red and yellow trees.  This is Vermont at its most charming; we wonder if we will have the same experience in New Hampshire.

The short answer is “No.”  First of all, there is a snarl of freeways, roads, and bridges as we cross the Connecticut River into Lebanon.  Traffic is intense and we feel quite exposed.  At long last, we clear the access roads and confusing one way streets and are ready for a break.  We spot a diner.   The diner is full of students from nearby Dartmouth College.  When we go to sit down, the young waitress behind the counter barks at us, “We’re closed! You have to leave.”   Wes points out that the doors were still open, she shouts, “You have to leave!”  We ask if there is someplace nearby.  Nobody answers.  This is not an auspicious welcome.

The layout of the towns and villages is quite confusing and dense, but we make our way to a coffee shop and call our accommodations.  It had been quite difficult to get a room on this holiday weekend.  After many calls, we were able to get the last room in the hotel that serves the Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital.  We have to cross freeways again and wind our way around to find this out of the way lodging.   The room was bit worn at the edges (especially for its high price), but young Indian desk clerk was friendly.  There were no services, so Wes and I set out walking to the closest convenience store.  Bleah.  Gas station dinner for us. 

Just as we were coming back, we crossed an uncomfortable scene in the lobby.  Three senior citizens, one man and two women, were seeking lodging for the more slender, care worn woman.  She had to receive medical services at adjacent hospital and had no car.   The three pled with the desk clerk, but the motel was full.  He asked, “What shall we do?  Where will we stay?”  Some desk clerks would have called around to see if anyone had any openings.  Some lodgers who saw this might have offered their room. But this night, neither did, and the trio went out into the cold night.  No room at this inn.

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posted from Centennial, WY

T+144: The Oldest Ski Lodge in the United States

Mile 3987: Killington, VT

We are anxious to complete the trip on or before our self-imposed deadline of October 15, and plan on moving through Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine as quickly as possible.  Vermont is an upside down triangle; our route through the state is only 65 miles across.  The pass over Killington is the last major obstacle before us on this trip. 

A typical Vermont landscape

We know we are going to have a climbing day, and it begins as soon as we leave Whitehall, NY.  We are able to get off the busy US Highway 4 and take its original route through the towns of Fair Haven, Castleton, and Rutland.  From there, we will climb the pass to Killington, where I have secured lodging at the top of the pass.  

The ride is beautiful.  The trees are spectacular, as is the little college town of Castleton, with its main street of maintained Federal and Georgian mansions.  We have truly entered New England…the architecture is utterly different than anything we have seen thus far.   In the West, old is 100 years old.  Here, the college was founded in 1787, and most of the houses were built about that same time.  Now, I understand,  in the global scheme, a town 250 years old is an infant, but the scale, scope, and sense of continuity here is so different than in towns developed and arranged for automobiles. 

However, we don’t tarry.  We are worried about the pass, so we push on.  We have been warned, over and over, that the passes over these Vermont mountains are nothing to sneeze at.  They are fairly short, true, but steep and demanding.  With the days getting shorter, and the chill in the air, there’s no time to be a tourist.


We have already made 30 miles when it’s time to find some lunch.  Rutland, Vermont is the center of that state’s granite and marble industry.  There are stone cutting businesses and granite supply houses all along the road, although we don’t see any of the quarries, they must be nearby.   In West Rutland, we follow signs to the “historic stone cutters district” and see some massive cut stones, but only one small deli “serving since 1930.”   Thinking this looked promising as it was situated in an 1830’s townhouse, we climbed the stairs, opened the door, and entered a tiny tavern with about 10 seats.  The waitress looked like a Barbie doll, with platinum blonde hair, false eyelashes, enormous, perfectly round breasts, and bright pink lipstick.  We asked about the menu, and the two guys at the little counter laugh.  She said, “We only have hamburgers and hot dogs.  Mostly, we just serve beer.”   She was understanding and helpful, however, when we asked for a place with a more extensive menu.  She directed us to Mary’s Kitchen for a real, home-cooked meal.

This truly is a locals’ place, in a converted clapboard house.  We sit in the former porch, surrounded by a group of ladies who lunch, a minister, and pair of local businessmen.  We have been climbing all morning and are kind of sweaty and rough for this genteel crowd.  We are scrupulously ignored in this setting, although we certainly feel eyes upon us.  We eat rather quickly, speak to no one, and make our way to Rutland.  Rutland is a busy market town, nestled in the midst of steep hills.  It has a historic downtown, which we glanced at from afar, and lots of big houses built into very steep lots.  I was fascinated by one Victorian house that first appeared to have three stories, but actually had two additional levels opening onto the steep downhill.   The town is a-bustle with preparations for a big art fair to begin the next day. 

We climb up to the big park where the art fair is setting up.  Traffic is horrific, and we are glad to step away from the crush for a minute to read a historic marker about John Deere.  Little did we know that he was born in Rutland in 1804, and left his family there while he went to Illinois, invent the steel plow, and found the company that is still going strong nearly 200 years later.  We look longingly at the art coming into the park, but know we still have to make the pass, so off we go.

Getting out of Rutland is a hard climb with heavy traffic and no shoulder.  We have to stop often to catch our breath.  At one raggedy, rough spot, we get off and push our bikes over grass and broken pavement.  We pass Norman Rockwell’s studio on the way, but again, we don’t stop.  The road gets rougher and steeper.  We are getting worried; we are still not to the pass.  Finally, we clear the outskirts of the town and pass the gates that mark the beginning of the pass.  The road widens.  There is a big shoulder.  To our astonishment, the grade eases and we find ourselves plugging right up.  After all our anxiety about this pass, it is eminently rideable.  It is easier than anything we ridden that day.
 


Wes celebrates our final pass!

Still, we are tickled when we get to the sign announcing our arrival in Killington.  We stop for pictures and feel proud that we have cleared the last mountain pass of our trip.  We ride along the top of the mountain.  There are lots of resorts surrounding the Killington and Pico ski areas.  When we finally spot the Inn at Long Trail, we are surprised at how small it is. 

We step inside and greeted by Karl, the desk clerk.  The inn has low ceilings and tree trunk beams.  We are immediately struck by the feeling of hominess and permanence.  There are couches and chairs nestled around a big fireplace.  There is a stand up grand piano in the corner.  There are all sorts of conversation nooks, a game room, maps and pictures on the wall.  Its unspoken message is, “Come in and visit a while.”  Behind Karl’s shoulder, we can see the Irish Pub, with its dark wood, benches, booths, and tables.  It, too, looks inviting.

Karl takes us outside and tells us to stow our bikes in the boiler room in the basement.  He tells us that the inn is named after its proximity to the Long Trail, a Vermont branch of the Appalachian Trail.  They get a lot of through hikers, some of whom stay in the trail campground across the highway, some who welcome a soft bed and warm water on this part of their sojourn.  Karl looks like an unreconstructed hippie.  He has long gray hair, kind blue eyes, and a mother hen energy.  He has worked at the inn for many years, loves his job, and is good at it.  How few desk clerks have actually been welcoming!  They could take a lesson or two from Karl.

As he shows us to our room, he takes us by the dining room.  It is built around a massive granite boulder the size of a small cabin.  Just outside the dining room windows, we can see that the inn is built into the living rock of the Green Mountains.  As Karl tells Wes that this is the oldest ski lodge in the United States, I have to go touch the cool, rough strength of the boulder.  At first he tells it as a joke, in reference to 1.3 billion year old boulder which has survived three ice ages, around which the inn is built.  But it is also factually true. The inn was opened in 1938, just as the ski industry in the United States was being born.  Most US ski resorts, (including the one my father opened in Centennial) were founded after WWII by members of the famous 10^th Mountain Division, who skied and fought through the Italian Alps. 

Our room is tiny but nice, with real wood furniture and nice linens.  It is clear we are supposed to spend our time in the lodge, not in our room.  That seems like a good idea to us.  It is not long before we are down in the pub, where we meet the owner, who introduces us to the staff and other patrons.   His family, the McGraths, have owned the inn since 1977, and spent the first years undoing modernizations and returning the inn to its original state. 

At the bar, we meet an older couple who have just driven up from the college town of Castleton to celebrate their anniversary.  We celebrating too, and it is not long before we are having a really fun conversation.  Both are former teachers: he taught high school math and she retired from teaching at the college in Castleton.   We had a great time telling “Administrator from Hell” stories.  We laugh a lot; they congratulate us on our trip.  We congratulate them on their 40^th anniversary.  It was sweet as it could be.

The dinner that night is good.  While we are doing our laundry, Karl catches us and says, “There are some through hikers I’d like you to meet.”  He coordinates a meeting between two young hikers and us for the next morning. We go the pub that evening, which is packed with families and people of all ages, there to listen to some Irish music and socialize.  The musicians are really talented, as can be seen in their intricate and beautiful instrumentals, but their vocal music choices are drawn from the Irish cornpone/bar music bin.  The schtick wears after a while; we wished they would explore their lyrical side.  But the crowd was happy, the mood was good…who are we to complain? 

Wes is ready for bed, but I am still restless.  I take my computer to the game room on the pretext of working on the blog.  There, instead of working, I watch three young children, two boys and a girl, encounter non-electronic games.  They play Chinese checkers, make contraptions out of the Tinker Toys, play “Shoot the Moon” and more.  The dad, who looks like an impossibly young executive, comes to get the kids for bed.  The boys go willingly, but the daughter, who is a bit older at about 11 years of age, is completely fascinated by the Lincoln Logs.  She tells her dad, “In a minute!” and he says ok and disappears.  She is making house after house, all square or rectangular.  As I get ready to leave, I crouch on the floor with her and show her how she can make rooms, bays, and extensions with the logs.  She is building an elaborate log mansion when I leave.

The next morning we meet the young hikers, who have the energy of junior high boys called before the principal.  Why were they being made to talk to these old, weird bikers?  Karl does the set up and introductions.  These young men are on the final stages of their Appalachian Trail hike.  We are on the final miles of a cross country bicycle journey.   One young man, exceedingly fit, and wearing the athletic gear to emphasize his physique, does most of the talking, while his compatriot stares into his tea cup.   They are both from Virginia, where they work in software. 

They are avid cyclists and hikers.  They have been taking the Appalachian Trail in 4-500 mile chunks.  They are going hut to hut.  They are going fast, carrying no tent, very little gear and food.  They hike 15-20 miles a day, which is a lot in the tough and rocky terrain of these mountains.  I ask if they wear hiking boots, and the answer is no.  They wear walking shoes.  I ask if they don’t need ankle protection.  He replies, with just the edge of a sneer, “We don’t.  Other people might, but not us.”   I ask if they have ever had a problem not carrying a tent, like getting stuck in the rain, or finding the hut already full of hikers.  He again makes a sneering answer about making sure they get there before anyone else…and oh, by the way, never listening to the advice of “civilians” about the trail or conditions.  “Civilians” in their book, are day hikers or weekend jaunters.  Only through hikers, like them, could be trusted to convey knowledge.  We don’t point out that they actually aren’t through hikers, like the couple we met in Idaho.  Karen and Mike hiked the 2200 miles from Maine to Georgia in one trip. 

After hearing all about their trip, Wes tried to steer the conversation towards our trip.  No doing.  Not interested.  The talkative one did tell us that he had seen us making our way up the hill from Rutland.  He said, “I thought you looked like an old couple on their way from grocery store.”  I wanted to pat him on his cheek and say, “Ah, youth!  Someday you will learn that appearances can be deceiving.”   Just because we don’t wear bike regalia doesn’t mean we are not serious bicyclists.  We wish them well on their journey, and go to breakfast.  They don’t have the presence of mind or heart to return the good wishes.

At breakfast, a 30-something woman in a hand-knit stocking cap is sitting right behind us.  She asks if we are the cross country bicyclists staying at the inn.  We say we are.  She asks how we found the ride up.  We say, “Not bad.”  She launches into a loud, funny discussion, for the benefit of the whole dining room, about her hike to the top of Pico.  She is enthusiastic about her experience: “Man, it was just great.  I was walking up there, just breathing so hard, then I go to the top and it just took my breath away.  I mean, I could see for miles.  It was awesome!  The trees were big, the boulders were huge.  I just loved it!”

She is from Pittsburgh, on a business trip to Boston, who thought, “If I’m this close, I might as well go see the mountains.”  She does this sort of short term adventuring as a regular feature of her business travel.  When she finds out we are from Detroit, she announces to the whole room, “I LOVE Detroit!  I have the best time there.  I love your art museum, and man, what great music!  I have never had a bad time in that city.  Don’t you just hate the way people talk about it?  It is so unfair.  I think it is a great city!”

In Pittsburgh, she is active in the anti-fracking movement.  It is not long before she is talking to everyone in the room about the dangers of hydraulic fracturing oil drilling.  Not everyone wanted to have a heavy duty political discussion with their homemade pancakes with real maple syrup, but we loved her energy and the fact that she got people going.  We had to get a move on, but were glad to see the conversation continued as we were leaving.

We are dragging our feet, delaying our departure, as we loaded our bikes. Karl comes out and thanks us for coming to the inn. We tell him we love the inn and that we will be back.  We can easily envision a family ski outing here.  But now, on this chilly October morning, we need to get down the mountain and onto the rest of our adventure.  There are not many places on this journey that so tickled our fancy, but this is one.  We will be back.

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posted from Centennial, WY