The day-late, travelling barf-show version.

Yep. I got whatever Tim had. I'm finally upright about 30 hours later. We're just about to leave Burlington and head for home.

Sorry for the repeat pic, but I haven't been in a photography mood these last few.

Westward ho

Last night we were both in bed and fast asleep by 9:30, and we stayed that way for 10 straight hours. Tim was still pretty weak to begin the morning, but definitely in better shape than the previous day, and we decided to stick to plan and hit the road. I went out for a run while Tim packed up a few of his things and had a shower, and then we packed up the car and made our way westward. Point-to-point, we travelled almost due west, from Latitude 44.2 to Latitude 44.48, however this was an almost entirely back-road journey, with two mountain chains to cross (White and Green Mountains, in New Hampshire and Vermont respectively) so it was anything but a straight line. The mileage was 269 miles and the time predicted by google maps was 6 hours, so it was not a rip down the highway. Which is entirely fine with us.

Tim felt well enough to make a short detour to one of his favourite places, Liberty Tool, in Liberty Maine, and he spent 45 minutes or so in there perusing the antique tools and finding a few treasures. The back of the car is absolutely crammed with stuff we've acquired (I am more the guilty party here), to the point where we are going to need a shoehorn soon.

That was our only real stop, other than a craft gin distillery in Vermont. We admired what I think was Mount Washington in New Hampshire, all shrouded in clouds at its peak, and we enjoyed the rustic farmland of Vermont's Green Mountains as we came through the Stowe area. We'd taken the dogs for a quick walk in a vacant lot behind a Ford dealership beside the distillery, and as we were driving I glanced back at the dogs, and noticed Soleil had a little spot on her head. Yep. A tick. It went flying out the window at 80km an hour and I hope it died a horrible death. This discovery led to a trip to Lake Champlain, where we sent the dogs for a swim in the frigid water to drown/freeze/murder any other hitchhikers that might have hopped on. 

So now we're back at the exact same hotel we arrived at 7 days ago, en route to Boston. The predicted rain graciously held off until the last few minutes of our drive, which was a bonus. We'll have a mosey around Burlington tomorrow in the rain, then head for home on Sunday morning.

Today's photos were just quick grabs out the car window with the baby camera, but at least they give a sense of the journey, and of the extent of the dog snot on the car's side windows.

...damp, dreary and dyspeptic

Well, today unfolded very differently from yesterday.

After we got home from our drive up the coast, Tim got some takeout pizza, and a few hours later he was sick, sick, sick, and this persisted for a good part of the early morning hours. Don't know for sure if it is norovirus or food poisoning; I think it may be the latter. He's still in a lot of pain and very low on energy as I type this at 17:00 Thursday.

Needless to say, his/our plans for visiting a tool barn and various scrapyards got thrown out the window, and instead he spent most of the day in bed. I took the dogs out for a few walks, interspersed with going for a run and a couple of shopping sorties along the main street of Camden, which is right outside the hotel door.

The weather seemed to mirror the mood, providing pathetic fallacy for the goings-on with us. We had some brief cloud-streaked sunshine in the morning, then the skies massed into a steely grey and it began showering midafternoon. In the break between the first two waves of showers, I walked the dogs over to Laite Beach, a little dog-friendly spit of land at the mouth of Camden Harbour. The shallows have seaweed growing in them, and Arwen wasn't too sure about that, so she took to high-stepping as she went into and came out of the water, which was comical to watch. Because the weather was so gloomy, we had the place entirely to ourselves, so I indulged in a bit more pebble collecting while the dogs did their fetching.

We have a 10-12 hour drive ahead of us, and our initial plans for the rest of the week had been to drive tomorrow to Burlington, Vermont, about halfway back, and stay 2 nights there, then drive the rest of the way back on Sunday morning. But at the moment all of that is up in the air until we see how Tim is doing.