Here’s the beginning of a big catch up. We did a hit and run trip last weekend to the third world part of VT (Huntington), staying on the Sadler compound. Here’s the recap:

I noticed a lot of the roads up there have good burnout marks. The best ones lead directly out of people’s driveways. That is, on the roads that are paved.

This is a real, working gas station. The yellow lines are the middle of a road.

Matt Taylor’s attack dog.

Jim and Jayme

Riley, dressed up for our visit

Wooshers. VT version of horseshoes.

I’ve known of Gary Boldgett for a long time, but somehow never met him. This trip I found myself at his house drinking beers, watching his dachshund Frankie get nuts. He (Frankie, not Gary) was obsessed with chasing and retrieving rocks, and would jump into the river behind the house to get them. He’d swim under water until he recovered the one you threw. If you stopped throwing them in, he would get one himself, drag up to the top of a 6′ cliff, throw it in the water and go get it, doing it over and over. I didn’t have my normal camera or I would have some good video.

The drive to VT is usually relaxed and animal free, but not this time. After getting off the NY Thruway late at night, it became a game of dodging wildlife. It started with a roaming gang of 5 raccoons, a baby deer, several foxes, 3 separate cats, frogs that were jumping across the road as high as my hood, a rabbit, and several bats that swooped down. The only thing that got hit was a bat that swooped down straight into my windshield, so we considered the minimal death toll a victory…