Vermont, Part 1: The Drive

It's Monday. The GPS is remarkably useful, but also a damned liar. We began at 10:45 or so. The ride was actually pretty pleasant for being well over four hundred miles. The key, if you ever decide to drive north, is to skip Manhattan. That will save you three hours. We learned this when we drove to Connecticut, and so we got lucky this time; no Manhattan. As for the GPS, it originally told us we'd be here at 5:45 PM. We got here at 7:00 or so. Granted, we stopped for food, but this should have bumped us to only 6:15. The snow cause a phenomenon I like to call "minute creep," which means that, for ever two minutes you're on the road, the GPS's estimated arrival time creeps up one minute, which can make the GPS a new-age torture device when you have to pee.

The real fun began when we hit the Vermont line, though. That's when mother nature decided to see if the Mazda would handle like a snowboard, or at least I assume so due to the snow it put on the road. Every mile, the snow got just a little worse. At that point the Girl was driving. That was interesting, since her foot REALLY likes the brakes. Every time she stopped, I thought we would careen into a slide. Thankfully, we did not, and she actually did pretty well.

When we got near to our destination, we had to call to obtain step-by-step instructions for getting to the place. At that point, the snow had built up to the point that the Mazda's traction control was probably praying for the pain to stop. I eventually took over so that I could weasel our way up the mountain in the snow, inch at a time. We made it though, and it's snow-licious up here. I can't wait to see what snowboarding on powder is really like. I hope my camera can take a run too. I've always wanted snowboarding pictures.