By popular demand: pictures of my de-spikified haircut. I'll get the spikes back, and this morning I washed all the blow-dry nonsense out so it's not quite so suburban. Here's how it looks now:







Way more interesting: the mountains have been very clear these past few days. You can't tell from the picture but I can make out individual trees on those shores.

Saturday up at 4:00 am to get to Brattleboro in time to set up for the big event. It was a roaring success, albeit too long. The highlight was Bernie Sanders giving a roaring pro-union speech:



He was followed by a gubernatorial candidates' forum. Let me just say that if you think there are some wingnuts running around in Indiana and Kansas, you should listen to some of the wackos running for office in Vermont.


Today I went south on the bike trail, and ended up at another lighthouse:



Here's me looking at the lighthouse:


Here's me with the lighthouse:


I sat on the shore for a long time watching boats and ferries and sailboats and ducks and swimmers and seagulls and clouds and mountains... it was a very busy beach.

Here's a henge:



Being good Vermonters, the henge-builders wanted to make sure that future archaeologists had no doubt as to what the henge was for, so they stuck a clearly-marked sundial in the middle of it:



I imagine, however, that future archaelogists will say to themselves, "These jokers had digital watches. What the hell did they need a henge for?"

Here's a cool old drawbridge across an old canal that was built when Burlington was a big lumber center. (The draw bridge is the tall square thing. The arched bridge is part of the bike path.)


There are mysterious doings right now on Depot Street:


Turns out there are blackberries getting ripe! It was picked pretty clean but I did find a couple ripe ones. Here are some not-ripe ones:



Love,
Sarah

Late-breaking local cat:

This guy is usually on the other side of the street but he was working my side tonight and came up to hang out with me on the porch while I was on the phone with Christopher. He moves fast;





He checked out the house through the front door very carefully to make sure I wasn't hiding any twinkies in there:


Can I keep him?


I'm calling him Colchester until someone tells me different.

I was in an earthquake yesterday.

I thought the people upstairs were moving furniture until I saw the timber beams above my desk start wobbling around. I moved out of there mighty fast, but nothing came down. Apparently Burlington is on the St. Lawrence fault and gets lots of earthquakes.

Haven't had a lot of time/adventures for taking pictures lately but here's a group photo of my fellow LSUS students, who are all now scattered around the country at different projects, and the AFL-CIO Associate General Counsel who coordinates the whole thing, who is one of my favorite lawyers in the world:


In other news, apparently JCN's class of 1990 is having its 20-year reunion in July, which means I'm getting downright antique. On the up-side, lots of fun phone calls from home today made me feel less homesick and more perky, even though it rained torrentially (as per usual) while I was waiting for the bus home. I guess it takes all this rain to make a state so green. The sun is shining loriously now - I might go for a walk after dinner.

Love,
Sarah

By popular demand, a quick tour of my immediate outdoor environs. They're not much, which is why I haven't bothered before.

The house looks kind of janky on the outside:





The back yard isn't much:


Here's the view north on my street (I have no idea who the person with pink hair is):


And south:


Wayyyyy more interesting to me are the mountains on the way to Montpelier! This one had its head in the clouds on the way to the capital, but coming back to Burlington it was clear:


love,
Sarah

On the way downtown there was this extra bad cat in a garden:


By the lake, a very inquisitive seagull made sure I was properly documented and registered:


After the seagull encounter I was hungry so I went to the Sadie Katz Deli...


where I had a really truly east coast Egg Cream!


Also some corned beef which was out of this world. Yummy!

Then over to the library, where I wandered around some art galleries in the children's section, which is in the old part of the building. The picture doesn't do it justice, but it's really gorgeous:


I scored some free books from the library basement and spent the afternoon reading here:


And there:


Not quite as spectacular as the bike ride, but a very groovy day nonetheless.

Love,
Sarah

Didn't start out intending to bike all the way up to the Winooski river today, but once I got on the trail, I never wanted to stop.



I found places where people swim in the lake. Unofficially:


And officially:


You bike and bike and bike through woods and hills and I took a detour into the suburbs to get some sunscreen(!) but eventually I got to the old train bridge across the Winooski. If you look east off the bridge, you see the river:


If you look west off the bridge, it's all lake and mountains:



Either way it's pretty spectacular. The bike took a break to look:


After the bridge there's a little causeway and then some suburbs. I didn't find the end of the trail; not sure how much further it goes on.


Here's me and the bike enjoying the bridge:


When I got back to the house, there was the neighbor's cat in the garage:


He's a Hemingway cat!


We communed for a while:


I think I biked maybe 12-14 miles, which is small potatoes, but I will sleep well tonight!

Love,
Sarah

My phone camera is just not cut out for wildlife photography, but here are some ducks, or rather, some duck derrieres, in the lake (at the end of the rocks):



A little further on, some ducks that were still sleeping one off (those little dark dots next to the driftwood are, indeed, sleeping ducks):



An encouraging sign:


But here's what you see when you look up, which is not so encouraging:


The other side of the sign:


It's all very mysterious but charming.

Love,
Sarah

There are wild roses everywhere, and they smell beeeeyoootiful. For that matter, there are flowers all over the place here:







I pass this pile of clothes every day. It's not always the same clothes.


Here's a cool outbuilding with no paint left on it:


You've heard of the Loch Ness monster? Well, we have the Lake Champlain monsters:


The local minor league baseball team is the Lake Monsters, in fact.

Here are some sailboats:



Here's me sitting on some rocks at the lake shore:


Here's the hill that I have to climb in order to get home:


Halfway up the hill:


If you make it to the top without having a coronary, this tree smiles at you:


Love,
Sarah