Rhonda Bracey: At Random

My first full day in Vermont was a day in the sun with my (Australian) friends, whom I’m visiting here.

We started with a long walk, followed by a day on (and IN) Lake Champlain. It was hot and sunny for much of the day, but boy! that lake water was sure cold and bracing, until you got used to it. Getting out of the water onto the transom of the ski boat was a bit of an issue for me — with my two shoulder surgeries, excess weight, lack of upper body strength, and lack of a ladder, I couldn’t pull myself out and had to have the help of all three of my friends to get myself up onto the transom like a beached whale! Fortunately, there’s no video of this, but we certainly laughed a lot!!!

We had a late lunch at a restaurant on one of the docks in Burlington (Spot on the Dock). While we waited for a table, we had some drinks, as you do. I had the jalapeno-infused margarita, which was a perfect balance of heat, bitterness from the lime, sweetness from the syrup, and the alcohol of course. Damn, it tasted good! But the two margaritas weren’t so good on an empty stomach and in the sun, and added to the dehydration (I hadn’t had any water for several hours) resulted in a massive headache for me by the time we wandered off to Creemees, the ice cream place nearby. Then it was back on the boat for the ~30-minute ride back to the ‘compound’.

It was a perfect day for us all to experience the best of summer in Vermont together — two of my friends left early on Day 2 to travel back to Australia, leaving just me and my girlfriend to share the rest of the week.

Some photos from Day 1:

Green, green, green everywhere

I’m staying in a cottage, but the lake has plenty of mansions too

The underpass below the causeway doesn’t have a lot of clearance and we had to duck our heads to get the boat through

 

Ashley and Kris (daughter and mother)