Vermont

The Great Outdoors

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That’s right folks the old man and I are headed to the great outdoors to test our camping skills.  Now this won’t be easy with our nice new tent, camping mattress and of course that newish camping stove but I think we can tough it out and survive. I will hopefully be back on Sunday with a nice post, unless of course a bear eats us, so until then here are a few things for your enjoyment (oh and don’t forget that there is still time to enter the Care Package Swap of 2010:

hmmm is this thing on?

Q: How many Canadians does it take to light a Camp Stove?

A: TWO (and no those aren't mine or my husbands if you were wondering)

Oh and I almost forgot to mention that I am participating in Project Food Blog check it out!

4 Summits, 3 Mountains, and 15 Miles later

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Yesterday the Hubz and I headed out bright an early to start on a 15 mile hike on the Long Trail. We started at Codding Hollow and hiked to Eden’s Crossing, climbing Laraway, Butternut and Bowen Mountains reach the summit at each and both the north and south summit at Bowen. This hike was one of the most difficult that I have done but it was an amazing time. We hit tons of mud, steep climbs, a set of stairs to get to Ritterbush Pond outlook which just killed me because it was at the last 1.7 miles and after 9 hours of hiking I was pretty beat. One of the most difficult areas however was a section called Devil’s Gulch which is all rocks, so there was a lot of sliding down on my bum to get through. One of the best things we purchased recently was a Camelbak backpack which was great because we had to refill the bladder twice, which made the Hubz happy because he got to use our water purification stuff. Next weekend we are hiking another section at Smugglers Notch while we camp so it should be an adventure.

Lookout at Laraway

Summit #1 Top of Laraway

Snacking on Laraway

Hubz and I at Laraway

1st Water Fill Up

Our Water Source- cool and refreshing

Top of Butternut Mountain- Summit #2

YAY! We made it to the top of summit #2

Bowen Mountain -Summit #3

Bowen Mountain- North Summit- Summit #4

Hot and Sweaty after about 5 hours of hiking

Devil's Gulch

Devil's Gulch

We Finished!

Road at Eden's Crossing

VT Brew Fest 2010

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Last night the Hubz and I made our way downtown to the Brew Fest at the Waterfront. Since it’s never good to drink on an empty stomach we headed straight to Alhi Baba’s for Falafel.

Then it was time for beer:

Finally our friends got through the massive line to get in and then we had ….well more beer obviously!

Don't worry he hasn't been double fisting all night he has mine as well

and what would Brew Fest be without friends in lederhosens?

and of course what goes better with beer than Alec’s Spicy Pretzels?

Unfortunately the night ended abruptly after waiting in line for a our last beer, getting up to the front just after our men and being told they couldn’t serve anymore. BOOOOOOOO!

The men showing of their success of getting the last beer of the night

Laura showing sad face with our last tickets of the night

It was a fun night and now that I’ve had my green juice I am ready for the market and iced coffee!

Somethings Brewing…

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At Vermont Brewers Festival!

Prior to heading to VT Brew Fest my parents met us at our new place bearing gifts aka mail that arrived at their house.  To our delight Salba Smart had sent me a number of items to sample.  We dove right in with the tortilla chips, the BBQ Crisps and my parents had some of the Cheddar & Sour Cream Crisps.

Some other goodies we have yet to try:

More Brew Fest Posts to come…..

Hiking the Long Trail

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The Hubz has been wanting to do some hiking this year and we haven’t made it out in the past month and half so today we decided to hike part of the Long Trail which is conveniently located near my parents’ house.  We did a 6 mile hike; the hike was basically straight up the mountain and we came across some great views where we stopped to have some snacks.

Our first stop was Prospect Point a this great lookout where we took a few photos and shared a Lara bar.

Next stop Roundtop Shelter (almost to the summit of Roundtop Mountain) where we enjoyed Nuttzo with jam and beautiful view.

Most repulsive smelling place ever---the outhouse- no we didn't use it

After hiking a yummy grilled tofu sandwich and baked sweet potato fries were in order…however hunger made me forget to take a picture.

First Camping Trip of 2010

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This weekend our friends from Toronto came to visit and we had our first camping trip of 2010.  We stayed at Little River State Park in Waterbury VT; it’s a great park with lots of nature/hiking trails and is located on the Waterbury Reservoir.  We had intended to spend Friday and Saturday night camping but when the rain started and then the thunder we had one of the quickest tear downs, packed up the car and headed to our house.

However before we headed home we:

The boys fired up the camping stove and we had some yummy eats

veggie burgers and sweet potatoes

Then we took a drive to the Waitsfield Farmers Market where Neil and I enjoyed some black bean tamales that I unfortunately didn’t get a shot of.  We took a drive up to the top of Stark Mountain where we proceeded to take a ton of photos.

Then after hitting up On The Rise for a vegan roll up we went on a hike back at the campground.

Following our almost 7.2K hike we relaxed at the beach and caught up on some trashy mag reading.  Then it was time for dinner before the rain.

NO those are not mine or my hubby's cigarettes in the photo above

We enjoyed some brews while we cooked up some food; I heart Magic Hat and Wacko is a great summer beer.

Dinner was yummy lentil sweet potato tacos both soft and hard.

After dinner we roasted up some vegan marshmallows and topped the chocolate agave cupcakes that I made Emma for an early birthday “cake”.

Luckily we got our marshmallow roasting done early because then the thunder rolled in and the air grew thick and we decided to make a mad dash to get the entire camp picked up and go to our house….where it was sunny.

Hike Recap

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Hubby and I woke up this morning and headed out for a hike. Hubby has been begging me to go on a hike since the snow disappeared but the weather hasn’t been great so when we woke up to a bright sunny day it seemed perfect. We stopped in at Onion River and picked up some shot blocks and Gu.

We started on our hike and at first it was pretty hard especially since I have been nursing a cold. We hiked for awhile and then decided to share a piece of XoBiotic chocolate which unfortunately was a little stale but we ate it anyway.

One of the fun things about our hike is that the trail we picked was a historical trail with little things to stop at each way.  Below is me pretending to tumble into a 27 foot well from the 1800s.

So our hike started out pretty well and then we decided to go to the top of this summit and went down the otherside.  About 40 minutes later we decided that we were going the wrong direction so we turned around and went the other direction for about an hour and 20 minutes.  Then again we decided that we were probably going to wrong direction.  Finally I spotted a trail that might get us back to where we started.  To my delight we found a headed up the trail and at the end of it were 2 Bud Light cans that we had seen earlier in the day and I yelped with joy.

Neil was pretty excited too. We were no longer lost.

After our 5+ hour hike that should have taken ohhhhh 2.5 hours, if we hadn’t have gotten lost, we headed to The Alchemist for some beers and delicious food.  When we got there they weren’t serving a full menu so we started with Genius Waters, beers and pretzels with spicy mustard.

Then we got a second beer, sweet potato fries to share and each ordered a tempeh sandwich.  Our eyes were bigger than our tummies though so we only ended up eating half of our sandwiches.

Now we are hanging out at home relaxing our bodies and drinking tea.

Q: What did you do today?