Weekend in VT

After a couple of days alone with Autumn in New Paltz, NY I spent the weekend with Jaedyn in Vermont. We didn't get up to the cabin until 6 or 7 in the evening Friday so other than the normal ritual of dinner and reading a story before bed, we didn't do anything the first day. Saturday started off with the Chili cook off in Ludlow. There were seventeen different chilies to sample. My favorites had to be the ones with whole chunks of meat as opposed to ground meat, but in the end I voted for Chili Con Carlos. Of course, like any contest there are always a couple entries that push the envelope. For example one had spaghetti and another had mole'. But hey, to each their own. Lenny, Linda, Mary and the baby Erol were up the for the weekend as well. I'm really bad with keeping track of time and how much has past but I do know that's in been a while since I've seen them. After burning all remaining taste buds that I had we headed up to Belmont to watch the cider being pressed. Jaedyn got kind of a kick out of watching the guys putting all the apples in the machine to be chopped then wrapped on the pallets then pressed to become cider right before her eyes. She could have stayed there all day, but if she did that she would have missed the first annual Parrot Festival at Jackson Gore. They had an outdoor grill and bar. They had live music playing old Jimmy Buffet, Dick Dale, and Beach Boys songs. They also had contests for t-shirts and Okemo lift tickets. Although I won the limbo contest and a t-shirt I was really hoping for the lift tickets. To win the tickets, we had to unfold a frozen t-shirt. Easier said than done, that thing was frozen like a brick. Well if there was any question that Jaedyn had a good time all one had to do was look at her pants. She spent most of the time sliding down the hill with the rest of the kids. I was able to pull her away for a short period of time for the limbo contest. Well, maybe it wasn't meant to be, because after the first band had played the rain started to roll in and we headed back to the cabin. After pizza and a friendly game of sevens we called it a night. Sunday started off a little lighter with me and mom hitting up some of the sales at the ski shops downtown. Later in the day we met up with the gang to go apple picking, and who doesn't like apple picking, or should I say eating. Hopefully I'll have time to get some pies made up before I go back to work on Thursday. I'm always so gun hoe about doing these things when we're picking apples but as soon as I get them all home I have a hard time making time to do them. Well, I went up hoping to see some good color in the leaves but I guess due to the dry summer we had and the nights not being cool enough peak has come and gone.

Weekday in the Gunks

The Maple stone...

Where do I start, I guess the first impression is always a good a place as any. We pulled up to the stone farm house around 2:00 on Tuesday with not a single car in the lot. It seemed like we'd have the place to ourselves. Just a quick lay of the land revealed an abandoned grain silo, an obviously non working red barn and well landscaped grounds. Just in front of where we parked were purple butterfly bushes with tons of monarch butterflies feeding on them. The whole thing screamed RELAX.... Well, after our quick survey of the grounds we were warmly greeted by one of our hosts, Sean. He gave us a full tour of the house and choice of which room we'd like during our stay. (We ended up taking the room that we saw and chose online, the Jenkins Suite.) He explained the idiosyncrasies of the house, gave us our own key and asked what time we wanted breakfast. I swear it felt like we were visiting family and they were putting us up for a couple nights. O.K. maybe not my family, but like you'd imagine in a movie or something.

Well, since we arrived early in the day we decided to take a hike up at the Mohonk preserve. We hiked the carriage trail and watched the climbers and boulders do their thing. Autumn was taking pictures of textures which got me looking for the same. Oooh honey..... is this texture?

We met our other hostess, Pati, the next morning when she made us an incredible breakfast.

Shawangunks...

Some of the best rock climbing in the northeast, and Autumn actually went climbing with me. I know what your thinking, not our Autumn, but yes and she did great.

We started our day by meeting up with CJ (our guide) in the West Trapps parking lot and hiking the under cliff carriage trail to our first climb of the day, Betty (5.2). CJ cruised the lead to set up a top rope anchor. Then after a little lesson in smearing, Autumn was off and going as well. When all was said and done, CJ lowered her to the ground. I asked her, what do you think? The grin from ear to ear was a good sign as she tried to catch her breath. Her reply was, "it was different."

After our warm-up it was off to Snookies Return(5.8), a different route and a little harder. This one Autumn struggled with a little but she made it past the crux(hard part). She didn't attempt Friends and lovers (5.9), but I can attest that they were both awesome climbs. Moving up through the grades, CJ took us to Never Never Land (5.10a). Now it was serious, this was an intense climb which required a lot of balance and fancy foot work. Autumn sat this one out and relaxed in the make shift rock lounge chair while sipping her ice cold cokes that she had brought in a cooler. (aahh, city folk) While I on the other hand was cursing and grunting like a caveman. After topping out on Never Never Land we followed the cliff base trail to Middle Earth (5.5). Now this would be a three pitch climb. The first would be 5.5, the second would be 5.2 and the third would be 5.5. After a long day of climbing Autumn's body was telling her to stop so CJ and I went alone. The climb was good the views were fantastic. The summit was about 150 - 200 feet, it probably could have been done in two pitches. The finishing moves to the summit was an overhang that truly was the perfect end to a perfect day of climbing. Now for those of you that are asking what is an overhang? Picture, if you will and large protruding rock that jets out horizontally. How do you climb over it? CAREFULLY....

Well, on our final day in New Paltz, we decided to take one last hike through the Mohonk Preserve, sampled some local cheeses and check out the local wineries. All in all a fantastic couple of days for Autumn and I to recharge an enjoy each others company.