Brattleboro Adventure – the Auckland Edition

Today I met Paula whom I had just read about in the paper. She’s walking 500 miles to DC to promote the idea of Gross National Happiness. I was already happier just for having met her.

Her blog is here http://www.happinesswalk.com/our-blog.html, and if you look at the 9/4 entry, I’m the guy who called out to her at the coffee shop.

You Can Have It All

Arnold Patent’s fine treatise on success finds a happy retirement home at the recycling containers near the High School.

I’ve mentioned Whetstone Brook before. Yesterday I discovered a neat spot off Elliott St. where somebody has made dozens of river rock cairns. It’s a bit of a dare, a taunt in the face of the next Irene to come our way.

Mobile solar tracker at Sojourns Health Care in Westminster.

On the newly improved West River Railroad Trail, a fine sculpture of rocks and bottles and springs and stuff.

Last weekend we visited Otter Creek Brewing.

The 4th of July in small town USA. In Brattleboro the Grand Marshal is a man in drag, and the Shriners ride snowmobiles.

In the 4-mi road race just before the parade I was outkicked by an 8 yr old.

The view up the Connecticut River from the newly opened Whetstone Station restaurant. Seared scallops great, fish tacos OK, nice crowd, friendly service. We wish them well!

Brother Frank visiting from Katy. Clockwise from top, at the fountain up the road, at Humble Kitchen food cart in the Harmony Parking Lot, and at the new Brattleboro Food Co-op.

Lee posing with Frank Stout’s “Nursing School Graduates” in the lobby at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital. The combination of caps and mini-skirts lets us date this painting pretty precisely to the mid-70s. We first heard of Frank Stout earlier this year, unfortunately by reading his obituary.

A family of geese on the Connecticut at dusk.

Exhibit a, the Frontier Restaurant t-shirt that we snatched out of the window at Boomerang.

Exhibit b, Lee and her photographer atop Mt. Wantastiquet.

Seen at the Brattleboro Food Co-op

Santa’s Land
Putney, VT
1957-2011
RIP

Today we ventured all the way to Townshend to hear a presentation about a new model railroad being developed as an educational tool to tell the story of the 36 miles of trouble West River railroad. Perhaps the most striking thing to say is that the room was filled to overflowing.