Hiking, swimming, pad thai, and guinea pigs . . .

Yup, that pretty much sums up our trip to Brattleboro, Vermont this weekend. We packed up on Saturday morning and Evan helped out by testing out the water bottles for us.


We strategically planned the drive to coincide with Evan's naptime. Sweet.


This plan did not fail us, as Evan woke up happy and ready to play.


We stopped for lunch at a little cafe in northern MA, and Evan got to try a few new foods. For the record . . . potato chips - yum . . . bacon - yuck.


After fueling up, we headed into Vermont and set out to hike Haystack Mountain. We've had a lot of fun trying the hikes in our hiking with kids book, which we highly recommend to anyone living on the east coast.


The hike started out okay, but Evan quickly lost patience with the whole process. After getting almost to the top, we missed the turn to the summit and ended up on a side trail. So, with Evan's mood and the weather both turning on us, we abandoned our summit attempt and headed back to the car.


The next morning, we pretended to be Bostonians by hitting the Dunkin Donuts for breakfast. Glazed donut - yum . . . blueberry muffin . . . yum. To work off all that good breakfast, we took Evan for his first ever swim in the hotel pool. I think the water was a bit chilly for him at first, but after a while he actually did go in up to his waist.


We wanted to sneak in one more hike during the weekend, so we visited Chesterfield Gorge (another one from the book - this one I highly recommend). Evan's tolerance level for being in the backpack was pretty low, but the hike was only a mile long, so it was a good compromise.


At this point, you are probably thinking "wait a second . . . I've been reading this blog for a good minute and haven't yet heard anything about pad thai or guinea pigs." Take heart, the craziness is quickly approaching.

We stopped back in Brattleboro for lunch and went to a Thai place that was right next to a little city park. Now, we love Vermont, but it is germane to this story to mention that the state as a whole is pretty liberal, and Brattleboro is especially so in that "we appreciate your individuality" sort of way. So, as Evan was enjoying some pad thai from my plate (yes, for the record, pad thai . . . yum!) we were not entirely surprised to see a lady playing interactive games with her pet guinea pig in the grass right outside the window. Occasionally, the guinea pig would get away from her and she would be on all fours with her head stuck in the bushes looking for it. It was quite the spectacle. I looked at John and said "well this is Vermont" to which he responded "hmmm . . . Vermont - the guinea pig petting state."

So, we had a wonderful weekend in a beautiful area, Evan tried a lot of new things and even liked some of them, and we only sampled a little bit of crazy. Not bad . . .