Vermont is for the Dogs

Our most picture-filled blog yet!

Out of the three of us that moved here this summer, I think it is Norm who has actually enjoyed the move the most. Vermont is probably the most dog-friendly state in the country (admittedly, I only have Iowa to compare it to). When taking Norm on any given walk, we encounter at least half a dozen other dogs, and those who don't have dogs will stop to adore Norm as he walks past. In the two and a half months that we've lived here, Norm has been to the beach three times, the drive-in theater twice, the farmers' market, a book store, and multiple festivals (not to mention our multiple trips to the dog park).

Swimming in Lake Champlain

A day at the dog park

Getting a good look at the screen at the drive-in

Look at that mug

A walk with a view

Seeing Mom off on her first day of school

Staying hydrated at the park

But the highlight of our time here, by far, was Shelburne Museum Goes to the Dogs which took place two weeks ago. Shelburne Museum is a beautiful outdoor acreage located about ten miles south of Burlington. For one day each year, it opens its doors up to Burlington's canine population, and typically welcomes at least 3000 dogs during the seven hours it's open. The museum was beautiful. The weather was perfect. And the museum's guests were pretty adorable. Norm won a rope toy and more treats than one dog should probably eat in one day. Oh, and though we didn't win, Norm also got to participate in the day's Poop Raffle. How many other museums can say they've offered that? Rather than bore the reader with more descriptions, I will just let the pictures speak for themselves. And read more about the festival here.

 

 

 

The day was perfect. And the longer we live here, the more days like this we will be sure to have. Burlington? More like BARKlington. 

The Ten Best Days of Summer?

A couple of years ago, the Iowa State Fair used the slogan Nothing Compares to the Iowa State Fair for its marketing campaign. Which is true. It is by far the biggest and the best. It even has a Broadway musical and a feature film about it. However, I feel if we are comparing sheer bewilderment, then Nothing Compares to the Champlain Valley Fair.

I should volunteer right off the bat that I am not the biggest fan of fairs, the Iowa State Fair or otherwise. In the summer of 2004 when

I worked for the Des Moines Radio Group, I was at the fair all twelve days from 8:30 am to 9:30pm. I swore after that I would never go back to the fair. Save for a lousy Journey concert in 2009 and a KCWI commercial shoot in 2012, I have made good on my promise. Tori, on the other hand, LOVES the fair, and considers her summer incomplete if she does not attend. Thankfully in Iowa she had her book club friends, high school friends, co-workers, or whoever to go to the fair with her so I didn’t have to.  Such is not the case here in Vermont. I thought for a second that I had dodged a bullet when one of Tori’s new grad school friends showed interest in going to the Champlain Valley Fair. Unfortunately her friend could not make it, and I got called up. The following is a true story. The names haven’t been changed to protect the victims. This is how it happened.

It was Labor Day, 2013. The last day of the fair. We left our home in Burlington and drove fifteen minutes to the Champlain Valley Fairgrounds in Essex Junction. Now, it should be noted that this is NOT the Vermont State Fair. No, that is in Rutland. The Champlain Valley is the low-lying area

along Lake Champlain between the Adirondack Mountains in New York and the Green Mountains here in Vermont. The Champlain Valley has its own fair. We arrived at the fairgrounds right before 11 am.  As we pulled in, an older gentleman welcomed us. He took a five dollar bill from us in exchange for a parking pass to hang from our rearview mirror. He smiled. He said, “Welcome to the Champlain Valley Fair! The Ten Best Days of Summer!” Tori thought it was cute. I had my doubts. We followed the parking lot attendant’s guidance to our parking spot. As we walked towards the ticket booth, we both verbalized our concern. “What the hell is this?” we asked. The night before had hosted a Toby Keith concert, yet the desolate, grey fairgrounds didn’t resemble anything that looked like a place where even Toby Keith would show his face. Tori thanked me for coming with her, knowing my discomfort. As we were standing in line to purchase $12 tickets, a nice young lady offered us one for free.

After purchasing our one ticket, we entered and went straight for what Iowan’s call the Varied Industries building. Or the 4H Building. Well, both, combined, but smaller. Basically we went into a

storage shed that had some stuff in it. Iowa has the biggest boar (and its, ahem, assets), Vermont had the biggest pumpkin, which was a big pumpkin. I bought a trucker hat for $5. Not because I am a trucker hat kind of guy, but because it said Freedom Isn’t Free. Which it’s not. See my $5 hat.

After that we went and saw some animals. There was some kind of cow with horns, an oxen? I don’t know. Tori petted a sheep.  And piglets. I milked a fake cow, because it was there. We watched chicks hatch. Basically all the rural stuff I never imagined doing in Vermont, we did it. There were goats and miniature horses and all the barnyard regulars one would encounter at a fair.

The carnival portion of the fair can only be described as some sort of  David Lynch Nightmare Hellscape. Like the most bizarre deleted scenes of Twin Peaks. Think of the Iowa State Fair’s
Eastsiders’ Night, but without the residents of Waukee wearing jorts ironically. You had the usual carnival barker questioning my manhood because I wouldn’t try to win a stuffed SpongeBob from 2001 for Tori by playing some rigged game. You know the old bottle game where you have to knock bottles off a pedestal and you win a prize? They actually had a sign that said NO CROSS THROWING! OVER HAND ONLY! What? So people finally figured out the key to winning your stupid game and your response is to ban it so your game is now impossible? That’d be like a blackjack dealer in Vegas saying you had to hit on 20. “Whoa, hey. Too many people figured out they can win money if they STAY on 20! Better change the rules to make sure they bust!” To have business practices lower than that of a casino is quite something.

 

But the worst, the absolute most mind-boggling, cringe-inducing, dumb-face-causing event was Rat Roulette. What is Rat Roulette? Something that belongs in the film Deliverance. We were walking by the carnival games when we noticed one was far more popular than any of the others. Almost every

seat was taken. We stopped to see why. At first I just saw people placing chips on different colors, and a wheel spinning through my peripheral vision. I just assumed it was some sort of carnie roulette, that they had somehow found a loophole in the state’s gambling laws and were allowing fairgoers to essentially play roulette. I thought that. Until Tori screamed, “Clint! Look!” She grabbed me and turned me towards the wheel. The carnie had a big cup that held an albino rat. An actual, live rat. He would spin his roulette wheel and then dump the rat onto it. The wheel was like a Wheel of Fortune wheel, except that each one had a hole in it instead of a monetary value. People then placed chips on what color on the wheel the rat would run and climb into. I almost threw up. I hate rats. We also passed a t-shirt vendor who was wearing a shirt that said, “Prayer, Just Do It,” while selling a shirt that said, “Welcome to America. Now Speak English or Get The F**K Out!” so, that’s something.

I don’t want to make it sound like this was the worst experience of our lives. We did have fun. We
rode the big Ferris Wheel. Which gave us great views of the Champlain Valley (and the lawnmower races going on below). But of course, as with any fair, the highlight of the trip was the food. While Iowa is all about the Pork Tenderloin, a fair in New England has fried seafood. Tori and I had a basket of fried whole belly clams with fries and coleslaw. I also ordered a Michigan Hot Dog, which I learned is just a hot dog with Coney sauce, and no one in Michigan calls them Michigan Dogs and they were invented in Plattsburgh, NY. The more you know.  We even celebrated the triumphant return of the Twinkie by sharing a deep fried Twinkie. This was my first one ever, as I don’t ever go to fairs and don’t particularly eat sweets, but, when in Essex Junction, Vermont, am I right?! And it was glorious! Holy moly! How did Hostess go out of
business? The summer fair circuit and fried Twinkies should have been enough to keep them in business! Amazing, amazing stuff. Like I need to tell all of you, who had your first deep fried Twinkie a decade ago. Sorry. I’m just catching up. As if fried clams, Twinkies, and hot dogs weren’t enough, we ended our inaugural trip to the Champlain Valley Fair with a root beer float from Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream. Perhaps nothing says summer in Vermont better than Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, so it was the perfect end to our first Champlain Valley Fair. The ten best days of summer? Absolutely not. The best three hours of our Labor Day? Definitely.

First a Tiger, Then a Norse, Now a Catamount

Usually the response I get from people when they find out that we moved here from Iowa is, "Why Vermont?" I usually have to pause before I can offer a concise answer, because there really isn't one. Let me attempt to explain.




Five years ago, I found myself at a sort of professional impasse.  I
had just returned from teaching in Belgium, and was trying a stint at substitute teaching around Des Moines. With an abundance of free time, and not really a clear professional goal in sight, I decided to take the GRE's with the hopes of one day attending grad school. After studying for months, I took the tests, and ended up sending my scores to the University of Iowa. In the meantime, I also applied for a sixth grade position at St. Francis School, where I regularly substitute taught. I was accepted to both, and ended up staying to teach.

Flash forward four years, where I reach another impasse, both professionally and personally. It was time for a change of location, but where? After encouragement from my family, I decided to consider grad school again, especially since my GRE scores were only valid for one more year. I again looked at Iowa, but decided I needed a little more distance.

So, I literally Googled "good educational grad schools on the east coast" and let the search engine do the rest. I inevitably stumbled upon the University of Vermont, which I found after further research was located in a town called Burlington. The more I researched about both the school and the town, the more intrigued I became. The school had a good ranking! The town was on a lake! The school had a beautiful campus!  The town was only an hour away from Canada!

Eventually I took the next step, which was to visit the campus itself. And so, with the help of my
supportive Aunt Jeanette, I set off on the twenty hour car ride to the town I would eventually call home. And it was love at first sight. Though it was March, the town was covered in snow. The campus was jaw-droppingly beautiful. I had a successful meeting with the head of my department. Everyone we met was friendly, and all of the food we ate was delicious. It was obvious that Burlington as well as UVM place high importance on sustainability. Not to mention there were TWO bookstores and THREE coffee shops located in the half-mile of the main downtown strip, Church Street.

If you look closely, you can see the
Adirondack Mountains across the lake

After an arduous application process (I apologize to anyone who had to hear me complain for the two months of impatiently waiting), I was finally accepted. Clint moved here to find a job and an apartment, and I joined him after I finished out the school year.

In two years, I will receive my Master's of Education in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis on literacy (what a mouthful!). I will only go to school part-time this first year, which means I will take two classes each semester. When I'm not at class or working on homework, I will continue to be in the classroom, but as a substitute teacher. I know I will miss having my own classroom, but it will be so handy to have the flexibility I will want as a student.

I know it's early. But I feel right at home already. One of my first assignments was to read the first half of a book called The Power of Kindness, a book I probably would have read on my own. It feels so good to be a student again. I may never want to graduate. :)