A Day with Kaylynn!

October 19, 2022

We made plans to meet Kaylynn for breakfast at a restaurant/bakery around the block from where we are staying at 9:15. This gave us plenty of time to do a load of laundry at the AirBnB before we left. It always feel good to get a refresh in the middle of the trip and I appreciated that this AirBnB provide laundry detergent for our use as well. So convenient! I’m going to try to do a second load tonight. The name of the bakery is August First. It was so good!! Tom said it was the best breakfast sandwich of his life. He had the “Eat the East” sandwich with egg, cheddar, arugula, maple curry mayo, cumin onion chutney, cilantro, on a brioche bun. I had the “Forester” special which had pork belly, fried egg, pickled onions on blueberry french toast. Sounds like a super weird combination, but it was very good. We will probably have to go back there for breakfast tomorrow before we leave. Before Kaylynn headed off to work she helped plan our day with things to see and do, then we said our good byes and told her we would see her for lunch.

Kaylynn suggested our first stop to be Mt. Philo State Park in Charlotte, Vermont for a nice couple mile hike to the summit. After yesterday’s summit hike, Tom was a little leery, but Kaylynn assured us it would not be a difficult hike. We pulled into the park, paid our fee, and talked to the ranger about the hike. He gave us a suggestion of how to complete the loop and gave us a map and guide. We were off for another hiking adventure and found this ascent was about half of what we did yesterday and most of it was via stairs. At the top we were rewarded with a nice view of Lake Champlain and some nice fall colors. We started the hike back down and took the suggested alternate trail of Devils’ Chair trail. This trail was a little bit more difficult then the trail we had taken to the summit, but not too terrible. Near the end of the trail was a geocache that I was hoping to get it. When we got to the geocache location we discovered it was in a cave that we couldn’t easily access. The rocks were super slippery from being wet, and even if I had gotten into the cave/crack area I’m not sure how I would have gotten out. We surveyed the area and ultimately decided it wasn’t safe to try to go for it. Another geocaching attempt abandoned. I was super disappointed that we couldn’t get to it. We made it back to our car and it was time to get going.

Our second stop was meeting Kaylynn at her work at Middlebury College. She gave us a tour of the impressive athletic complex. We then took her a short distance up the road into town and ate at Otter Creek Bakery & Deli (https://ottercreekbakery.com/). I had the Mid Wester with roast beef, horseradish, mayo, provolone cheese, tomato, lettuce and Tom had a half Otter Creek Sub with ham, salami, smoked turkey, provolone, onions, tomato, hot peppers, lettuce, pickles, Italian oil on french bread and Kaylynn had a cup of soup. We all enjoyed our meal and then it was time to take Kaylynn back to work before she had to be on the field.

Before we left town I attempted another geocache, but with the all the one-ways and and crazy roads in town we gave up on figuring out how to navigate to it. A second Vermont geocache abandoned. Vermont geocachers . . .you’re killing me. We drove 45 minutes back to Burlington and on our way back to our AirBnB parking location we came across Citizen Cider. This place had been recommended to us by Tom’s supervisor who is from Vermont, Kaylynn, and from my friend Leah who had been in Burlington in June. I’m not a fan of cider beer but Tom is, so he got the fruity flight and I got a beer. He decided after trying the flight that he prefers to stick to apple or pear ciders in lieu of any other fruit.

The sun was setting and Kaylynn told us we would get a good sunset down by the lake so we drove down the park area by the lake. She was right! We were treated with a nice sunset. After getting a couple of pictures I left Tom to attempt another geocache. This time I finally had success!! Thank you Vermont! I thought I would try a second, but with it getting darker and it being hidden in some bushes I made an attempt but didn’t locate it and thought I should get back to Tom sooner than later. I found Tom quite content, set up near the lake taking a time-lapse photo series of the sunset. All-in-all this was not a great geocaching day, but I’m glad I got one. Hopefully I can get a couple of more in Vermont tomorrow on our way travelling through the state to Massachusetts.

We made it back to the AirBnB and had a chance to relax for a little bit (and for me to change my pants since they had gotten all muddy geocaching) and for me to start writing the blog before Kaylynn got home from work to pick us up to go to dinner. We went to the city of Winooski (right next door to Burlington) for dinner. It reminded me a little bit of Bay View. Kaylynn chose a Chinese restaraunt called Mandarin (https://www.mandarinvt.com/). We had pan fried pork dumplings and crab ragoon for appetizer. For dinner I had vegetable Lo Mein with chicken, Tom had Beef and Brocolli and Kaylynn had General Tao’s chicken. All food was really good and we had no complaints. After dinner we met up with Kaylynn’s boyfriend, Joe, and went across the street to an arcade bar called The Archives (http://www.thearchivesbar.com/). Tom, Kaylynn and Joe had a good time playing pinball and a couple of video games. I had a good time sitting back, drinking beer and watching them play games. At 11:00 we were all tired and ready to hit the road. We got an Uber and got dropped off near Church Street. We said our goodbyes to Kaylynn and gave big hugs with promises we will back to Burlington to visit again.