Date:         Mon, 26 Nov 2007 21:02:09 -0500
Reply-To:     craig cowan <phishman068@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         craig cowan <phishman068@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      NVC: A trip trip to Vermont with my brother-REPORT
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Some of you have been eagerly awaiting my trip report and sending me emails
and some very helpful suggestions of places to go while in Vermont. Well
might i start by saying, my trip to Vermont with my brother was simply
amazing! There is almost no Vanagon content in this email, aside from some
very well document vanagon sighting. So if your really just waiting to find
the Vanagon content, I hope you enjoyed this first paragraph and have a
great day. For those of you looking to read the report, i hope you enjoyed
the first paragraph, and read on to enjoy the subsequent report.
Warning.....ITS LONG. You probably don't have time to read this.

Here goes. I am a freshman at Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania and
my older brother a junior at Gannon University in Erie Pennsylvania. About a
month ago our parents told us our mother was scheduled to work the
thanksgiving holiday, so for the first time in our existance we would not be
going to see extended family for thanksgiving. We saw this as an opportunity
to embark on a journey to a state i've wanted to revisit for some time,
Vermont. We've traveled the country growing up, making it to most of the
states (we're missing something like 4) without ever getting on an airplane,
but i remember very little about Vermont. With that said, i am and always
have been a truely passionate fan of the band "PHISH", who grew up in and
got their start in Burlington Vermont (at a bar called Nectars, more on that
later!). So with no plans for our thanksgiving breaks, and time off school,
it just seemed right to make a pilgrimage east. On monday the 19th of
November, 2007 my brother traveled south from Erie to pick me up from school
and drive me up to erie, where i stayed the night and met some of his
friends. It was a good start to a great trip. On Tuesday, bright and early
we loaded up the 1985 Volvo 240DL with our backpacking supplies, 4 pairs of
snow shoes (i'm still not sure why we had 4 pairs), a pair of mountaineering
ice axes (which we had never used before and proved to be EXTREMELY useful),
a cooler full of food, and various other camping supplies. Armed with a
notebook of destinations i'd made before hand, and ALOT of music to listen
to.....we left. But like any great trip, we didn't get very far. Somehow or
other, we didnt end up leaving Erie PA untill about 4pm, even though the car
was packed and ready at 8am. So we get out on the open road with the goal of
making it to Ithaca New York that evening to stay with a mutual friend who's
an engineering student at Cornell University. What ended up happening was i
misread the mapquest directions.....drastically. Instead of being on one of
the major highways (i cant seem to find my map right now!) for 18 miles and
then merging onto the next highway for something like 190 miles, we got on
highway A (the one we were supposed to be on for 18 miles), and stayed on it
for 150 miles before realizing our problem. Once realizing the problem, i
busted out our GPS (Garmin 60C with all the good software!) to find that
somewhere in the process of transferring the necessary maps to it, we ended
up failing miserably and all maps and software were erased making this a
very useless tool for most of the trip. We had to resort to PAPER MAPS, the
kind that come all folded up with a crease right through the most
inconvenient places. Well it ended up adding an hour to our trip, but we
ended up just being a little north of where we wanted to be so it didn't
work out to badly. Once in the Ithaca New York area, the first Vanagon
sighting occured. It was a '88ish Blue 7 standard vanagon on top of the hill
towards Cornell University (anyone we know?). So we got to our friends place
which was a very nice apartment and it was nice seeing an old friend, but he
had alot of homework to do and had to be up early so we really didnt get to
talk to him much, but we still really appreciated him opening up his place
to us. The next morning we arose early to get back on the road.

Now its Wednesday November 23rd and we're on the road at 7am, strait through
to Burlington. We had some uneventful driving, though it was nice to start
passing into a colder climate with a little snow on the sides of the roads.
We arrived in Burlington in the early afternoon and drove around the
University of Vermont campus, a school i've always been tempted to attend
and will hopefully spend at least a year at someday. It's a truely beautiful
old campus, and we picked up T shirts in the University Bookstore. Then we
followed the direction i had from a fellow list member to get to a cheap
motel only to find a cheaper one down the road. We arrived at "The Ethan
Allen Motel" on Rt 2 and found the perfect place! The gentleman behind the
counter was a great guy and we talked about our plans for our adventure,
most notably our plan to climb Mt. Mansfield and he reminissed about his own
youthful escapades before deciding to give us a special deal! The room we
got had a double bed and a smaller room with a separate twin sized bed, it
had heat, a tv with cable, free WIFI, electricity, a bathroom with water
(even hot water!), and electricity for $52/night for two people. It seemed
like an unbeatable deal and since we didn't have a vanagon to sleep in, it
was our home for the trip. After getting situated we went into town to visit
some of our notable places along the legendary Church Street. We went to a
Hemp store that proved to be extremely over priced, followed by a very cool
gem store that sold cool beads and artifacts from all over the place, i
ended up getting some beads and a very nice ink well. Then it was off to the
"Vermont Brewery" for dinner. They had truely fantastic service and we got a
great meal of fish and fries, with an appetizer of fried oysters. They had a
truely delicious root beer for a great value of something like $1.50/pint,
it had a very sweet flavor to it. Brian (my brother) got a nice brew and
claimed it to be truly fantastic and a worthwhile experience. Then it was
down the street to a truely cool place called "Dobra Tea". I fully encourage
anyone visiting Burlington to stop here! I am a bit of a tea afficianado and
i was in HEAVEN. They offer probably 100 different types of tea and they are
all available for sale in dry form (quite reasonable prices too!), and its a
very cool atmosphere. While we were there sitting on the floor in an
oriental environment, there was a poetry reading going on. It was a great
time. From there (armed with some purchased Teas! Including a pound of Yerba
Mate, my favorite type of tea which i have alot of trouble getting around
here) we headed to the legendary "Nectars" Lounge. This is where Phish
started out and i have bootlegs of some of their early shows here. We were
told to get the Gravy Fries (and theres some tradition about "sniffing"
them, though they don't smell very unique for the record), these were quite
delicious. I had a rootbeer, but it was a cheap fountain root beer, Coke
Product....not amazing, while Brian enjoyed a "Magic Hat #9" and we listened
to a nice little band playing. It was a pretty cool experience. From there,
it was back to Church street to explore the MANY outdoor shops available out
there. I was in heaven! I got some great deals at a place called "Climb
High" and we gathered maps and some great advice and stickers (i'm a sucker
for a good sticker!). From there, it was "Back to the ranch" (Ethan Allen
Motel) for the night.

Thanksgiving Morning, we wished eachother a happy thanksgiving and got a
late start to make our way to the Magic Hat brewry to take a tour. We get
there only to find that they (along with EVERYONE) were closed on
Thanksgiving (rightfully so). With our days plans ruined by everyone being
closed, we decided to go climb the mountain. This proved to be a very bad
idea. The car was packed, so we made the hour treck to the end of route 108
near Stowe Vt. to climb Mount Mansfield via "The Long Trail". We repacked
accordingly to day packs, bundled up (Gaiters, Arctic Mits, Ice axes, etc.)
and we took off. It was about 1pm when we hit the trail, and clearly were in
for more than we expected. The conditions were simply deplorable. It was
about 37* and raining, the snow (which there was a foot to 2 feet of) was
wet and slushy, and due to all the melt, massive rivers intersected the
trail (one of which may have involved one of the most dangerous stunts i've
performed in a while to cross it!). The trail was well broken and marked,
but we decided that no matter where we were at 3pm we would turn around so
as not to get caught out there in the dark (we're two Eagle Scouts....). We
made it up to 3459' (the only thing the GPS really did for us was work as a
clock and altimeter) before reluctantly turning back to go back down. We
could always try again tomorrow. The ice axes proved to be an extremely
useful tool and work much better than the tradition trecking pole i'm used
to using in the snow, it gave us great confidence and allowed us another
point of contact which could bear some weight with every step. We got back
in the car with daylight to spare (I'm glad we played it safe), but all of
our gear was simply SOAKED. We returned to the motel to lay out all of our
gear and turn up the heat, change into some dry and nice clothes, and it was
off to thanksgiving dinner. Our Grandpa was so proud of us doing this
together as brothers that he wanted to make sure we had a good thanksgiving
meal and told us to spare no expense and clearly said "he didn't want us
just getting a burger in a dinner somewhere". We had been told of a place
offering free thanksgiving meals called "SweetWaters" and planned on going
there and making a nice donation, but found the place to be closed by the
time we got there at about 6pm. After walking around Burlington we found
only two places open. Option A was a nice looking place called "Souza's
Churrascaria-Brazilian Steak House". They had a sign out front for some
seafood dishes for about $18 and it looked warm inside. Option B was a place
called something like "Joes Dinner". It seemed like we didn't have much of
an option, so into the Brazilian place we went. They specialized in a
traditional Brazilion style of "continuous serving" that they talked us into
for something like $38/head! It seemed crazy untill a guy in what i'd call a
costume came around with a sword with meat on it and said "can i interest
you in some feletmenyon (I butchered that spelling) wrapped in bacon. How do
i say no to that? Subsequent servers brought around prime sirloin, lamb
chops, and chicken hearts. It was a truely delcious meal, with a total bill
of nearly $100 (we later called Grandpa and he was glad we had a good meal
and totally ok with it.....luckily). From there, it was back to the motel to
get some sleep, a day on the mountain would follow. So we hung out, watched
some TV and I kicked back a few root beers and birch beers while Brian
sipped on some of Vermont's Finest. (There was also a Beige 83.5? Westfalia
parked on a side street in Burlington. Anyones?)

We woke up at a reasonable hour on Friday the 23rd of November and headed to
Stowe. We made it to the mountain and got on the trail at about 11am, this
seemed like a much better hour to get us to the top. Much to our suprise, no
one had hiked the trail before us yet that day, and there was a foot of
fresh snow. So now we're battling to break trail in fresh powder, and it was
pretty cold too (26* ish). The snow was dry, so we stayed dry and warm all
the way to the top. The previous days "RIVERS" were simply little trickles
and easy to cross (no oxen were lost in the fording of these streams). The
mountain was quite a challenge, "post holing" our way through the whole way
(we had snow shoes but left them in the car, the trail was to steap and
narrow for snowshoes to be very useful). Finally, just below the top a pair
of local hikers caught up to us. We talked to them and hiked for a while
untill we reached a clearing. This was horrible. We were looking for the
white blazes on the trees on the other side of the clearing that would mark
the trail, but there was also snow attached to EVERY tree. Furthermore, with
all the fresh snow we couldn't see any trace of a trail. Even the locals
were befuddled. We ended up trying a few different directions and expending
alot of energy blazing our way before finding the trail again and making it
to the base of the summit. This is where our locals left us but told us that
we probably would not make it to the top without crampons. We continued our
way up the summit and it was a bit dicey, ice covered rocks and sheer
cliffs, but we ended up finding a way to make it to an elevation of 4370
feet, just 23 feet from the top. That last section seemed entirely
unnavigable without crampons, ropes, and experience. In an attempt to hide
from the wind a bit and light our stove to make tea, i took off my outer
glove on my right hand leaving the liner on. In the 3 or 5 minutes i spent
fuddling with the stove before deciding it simply would not possibly light
in the wind, i went to put my mit back on. My hand was not at all cold but i
figured it would be had i been in the force of the wind, but i discovered
that my leather, fur lined mit was frozen solid. I had to have my brother
manipulate it just to crack it enough to get my hand in there, and it was a
struggle to keep my right hand warm the whole way down (the glove itself was
making my hand cold!). I brought along an infrared thermometer with me and
got an accurate reading of about 18* at the top on the sunny side, and 12*
on the cold side. We also found out later that the Mt. Mansfield weather
station had been recording 25+ mph winds that day, bringing the wind chill
to -11* or less! The hike down was a bit tricky, but we ended up making it
to the bottom and all was well! At no point did i feel any of my limbs were
in danger of cold, my feet and hands were perfectly comfortable the entire
time except for the chilly right glove incident. Once making it back to the
base and taking off our heavy gear, tea was made in the parking lot and I
served some people who had just come down the mountain from various cross
country skiing expeditions and it was nice for a few groups of people to get
together and just talk about everything over a nice glass of tea, in a 20*
icy parking lot. We talked for a long time about biodiesel and Strait
vegetable oil with a guy who drives a TDI jetta (and has over 400K miles on
it!). Then it was off to catch the last tour of the Ben and Jerry's Ice
Cream plant. It was a nice tour and i recommend it to anyone! While in their
shop it occurred to us that other than a pair of donuts in the morning and a
power bar on the trail, we hadn't really eaten anything all day and should
replenish some calories. It then seemed only logical that if were to eat
only one meal that day, it should be a pint of ice cream. So we each grabbed
a fresh pint of their finest, and ate late breakfast/late lunch/late
dinner.....all in one. They say there's 4 servings in a pint, so we think we
did pretty well (wouldnt it be great if it actually worked that way!?!??).
Lastly it was back to the motel for a celebratory Ginger Beer and some
relaxation.

Saturday morning we arose early to make it to the "Magic Hat Brewery" for a
tour, though we were to early to get a full tour. My brother is a big fan of
their products, so it was nice to take a self guided tour and hit up their
store to get some cool T shirts and stickers (i got some GREAT stickers on
this trip!). Then we were on the road by 11am. It was supposed to be
something like an 11 hour drive back to Pittsburgh, but somehow we managed
in 9 hours 15 minutes. Who ever knew that a little Volvo wagon with only a
little more power than our vanagons could actually do something like that?
We made it back late saturday night, quickly unpacked, and both went our
seperate ways to visit with friends who we grew up with that were in town
from their respective universities for the short bit of holiday that
remained.

Sunday morning we arose at home, a good trip behind us, and much of our gear
piled up in our basement. I started the old vanagon to make sure she still
had at least a pulse, drove her to the top of the driveway, and back down,
as no one was home to rescue me from whatever problem still hasent been
fixed as there are several, and i know she would have cut out on me... :-(
Then it was time to repack the gear, clean the fish tank, and jump in the
car for a ride back up to Slippery Rock. The journey ended there and it was
back to classes today.

Burlington is a beautiful place which i encourage everyone to visit if they
are ever on the east coast! 3 vanagons were seen on the drive home and are
as follows:
A Blue '88+ 7 passanger headed north on Rt 87 At 1pm on Saturday, Near
Albany New York
A Brown Westfalia with a bike rack on the back following slightly behind the
above blue one.
A Gold '86+ 7 passanger headed East on Rt 90 @ 1:15pm just west of Albany
New York
And a Yellow/White aircooled 7 passanger later on in the day on Rt 90 headed
East.

It was a great trip and i appreciate all the help that was provided by some
of the list members! Its time to get back to reality and school. I hope you
enjoyed the last hour of your life reading this. My only question
is.....why? Why would you actually read this whole thing? If your reading
this part right here, you need to go crack open a root beer, hug your
family, and give thanks for all you have, after all.....thats what this
holiday season is really about. Thanks for your time! I'd love to hear your
comments! Future stories can be provided on fridays if there's interest.

-Craig
'85GL