A Very Unparked Domain

When Neil tried a bowl of Vermont cheddar ale soup at Brattleboro’s Riverview Café earlier this week, we were both impressed with how the bitterness of the ale anchored the sweet creaminess of the cheddar. The soup was more substantial, more complex and more interesting than we anticipated. A delicious surprise!

It has been a pleasure to see how vigorously Brattleboro businesses promote and support local Vermont products.  Menus boast of dishes made with Vermont Cheddar, Vermont cream, Vermont microbrew ales, and of course, Vermont maple syrup.

Locavore / Green Traveler Alert! The Riverview Café is a member of The Vermont Fresh Network, an organization dedicated to supporting Vermont farmers by connecting them with local chefs.  What a brilliant initiative on so many levels: strengthening agriculture, improving the quality of local restaurants, showcasing state produce to locals and tourists, reducing the environmental impact of food distribution, encouraging local eating, and improving public health through the consumption of quality local foods.

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Sometimes I lose days.  Days slip through my fingers like quicksilver and before I know it they are gone.

Today was one of those days.

I slept well, and woke easily. Then Neil came upstairs with the mail….

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Quote of the Day

“$29 for a hotel in downtown Boston? You’d have to bring your own fleas!”
— Neil

In response to my announcement that I’d found a room for $29 in Boston (which turned out to be $329).

After our two-part misadventures at our last stop (see: Knackered in Nashua, and Lathered in Nashua), we have landed happily in a nice(ish) hotel in Brattleboro, Vermont.

That is not to say that the universe has changed. We are still us. You could tell which room was ours, from all the way down the hall.

It’s the only one with that number sign on it.
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After we lost our air conditioning on Saturday night, I felt like it was reasonable to ask the hotel for some kind of discount.

I wasn’t really sure how to ask or what to ask for. I checked in with our friend Jason, who worked in hotels for years and is the consummate hospitality professional; he gave us some great advice that I’ll be sharing in an upcoming post. (Stay tuned!)

And yet, I’m not an especially greedy or material person, and I felt a bit like a weasel for asking for a discount.

And that’s why the hotel did me a great favour in supplying some serious motivation, at the 11th hour, to ask for a discount after all…

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Crab trap full of crazy star fish, Captain Bill’s boat, off the coast of the Haida Gwaii

[If you think this is creepy, click on the picture for a larger version!]

Picture taken by my dad, Ron Evans, on Neil and Dad’s fishing trip, July 17, 2007

I have spent the week sitting in a hotel room, watching TNT, and feeling absolutely nostalgic.

I’ve had a rough week in Nashua battling the elements, and losing. That means I’ve been too tired to write and too tired to read. I have actually been reduced to watching television.

The challenge is to find something to watch on TV that doesn’t make me feel worse!

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We haven’t seen much of beautiful, historic Nashua, New Hampshire yet, because we’ve been fighting the weather.

After a rough start in Nashua in Friday, we spent a lovely Saturday afternoon walking around downtown, but that’s all we’ve managed to see so far.

By Saturday night the heat was unbearable, and Friday’s unseasonably high temperatures had developed into a full-out heat wave.

Every room in our hotel was booked, because of the Can-Am League baseball game in town, and so was every other hotel in Nashua.

And around 1:00 a.m. Sunday morning we realized the air conditioner had stopped working.

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We are in beautiful Nashua, New Hampshire, in the south east corner of the state, absolutely under siege from the elements.

We took the back roads in from Sturbridge, Massachusetts on Thursday, August 14, and got in late.

How late?

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Rather than sit and program in a dingy hotel room all day, it is nice to get out to libraries and cafes that offer free wireless Internet (“wifi”) to enjoy the atmosphere, chat with local people, and keep the non-programming member of the household (that would be me) out of trouble while the programming member is getting his work done. The trick, of course, is how to find free wifi.

We have just added a “Free WiFi Finders” section to our sidebar to list our favourite free wifi resources. These are all sites that we use ourselves, and we hope you find them as useful as we do.

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