New struts and we're officially heading West!

Since we will have to wait for WiFi I think it's best that we log the trip along the way and ‎do mass uploads to the blog when we can. So I suppose I should time-stamp this log ‎so everyone doesn't get confused about our timeline. ‎
Right now it's 9:21 am on Thursday, June 4th. I am sitting at a picnic table in the back ‎parking lot of a Honda dealership in Rutland, VT. About half of our stuff is strewn about, ‎Charley is tethered to the leg of the table and the bunnies are tied to a tree behind me ‎where they are busy mowing the immediate area with their proud bunny incisors. Both ‎of our rear struts are being replaced. Apparently they were getting a little old and we ‎burst them on the way up from Brooklyn. Oh well. It's all under warranty so it's all good!


All the poor animals had to tough it out at the dealership with us...





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The past few days have been emotional ones. Saying goodbye to our families in the ‎Northcountry, we realized that getting out of The Big Apple comes with a price. ‎Everyone has been very understanding and supportive of the trip, but seeing the 'rents ‎tear up last night after our big sushi dinner was a little much for both of us. But at least ‎we are ripping off the band-aid quickly, so to speak. Once the Element is packed up ‎again we will officially be heading West on Rt 4 and it is adventure time! ‎
Oh, also, we stopped by to see the nicest man on the planet yesterday.

Weem Epply, ‎who has been a dear friend of my family for a long time and a big supporter of Molly and ‎I, greeted us with a warm smile despite his recent surgery from which he is still ‎recovering. We had a lovely visit and he was so excited to meet the new car and hear ‎all about where we are heading. He also gave us the low-down on the huge house ‎being built across the street from him. I guess the $1.2 million house that was there ‎before wasn't good enough, so the Lynches ("as in Merril-Lynch," says Weem) razed ‎the place and are 'installing' a $6.5 million behemoth, effectively blocking Weem's lovely ‎view of VT that he had for a couple of years in between the razing and the raising of the ‎houses. I was surprised to know that the Lynches are solvent enough to do something ‎like that after all that bailout business...oh well. ‎
Anyway, I'll leave room for Molly to describe how beautiful the fog of central VT is at ‎‎6:30 in the morning. I'm sure she'll have some pictures to share as well. ‎
Be well and I'll check back in a couple of days. J-dawg out. ‎