if i could, i would make you a raging river with angry rapids supplied with rain, so you could always meander and forever be able to run away

The rain keeps coming in spite of hope in everyone's eyes that we have reached the end of it. Everyone says this isn't what Vermont is like, but there is a lot of, "I expletive hate this place" going on in the yurt.

The other day we went for humid, buggy mountain bike ride and then stopped at a secret swimming hole we discovered. Yesterday when we went by it was no longer a swimming hole, looking like this instead:

So it goes. 

Bill McKibbens, environmental activist and creator of 350.org, came to speak last night and talked about the impacts of global warming on Ripton with flooding, rainfall, etc. and I could see that this really isn't Vermont's normal. 

Also last night was a reception for those of us who received scholarships for this summer and I found out mine was given in the name of a person who was killed in the Challenger explosion. I didn't catch the name, but I will try to find out! 

Good news around the bend: I present on my Amazon research today and I will be glad to have that out of the way. I turned in my paper for Finance class this morning and although I have even bigger work ahead, I feel like I can take the weekend off (mostly). Also, next week Mom and John hit Vermont and are staying at Branbury. I'm thrilled and Klue really wants to see her boyfriend Maximus Adolphi. Also, we're hitting the town with the newlywed Dunnebiers, previously known as Josh and Katie. Another plus: I am hitting up the chiropractor next week in the hopes of ridding myself of these pesky migraines. The sun will come out tomorrow. Maybe. 

creatures in the night

We've been having a visitor at Moosalamoo as of late. The other day I found one of the garbage containers ripped open. The locked hinge wasn't helping much seeing as it was no longer attached to the door. I cleaned up the garbage that hadn't been dragged back into the woods, put the door back in place, and hinged the top and bottom parts shut. The last time the rangers emptied it they didn't use the sliding bolts on the top and bottom so an animal was able to get enough leverage to rip it open and make way with their prize. Bryan seemed to think a raccoon could have done it, but I, with my great big imagination believed it to be a bear. Keith did have a two-bear sighting on the road up here, so that reinforced my belief.

Last night I woke in the middle of the night to banging sounds and when we drove by this morning, not  to be dismayed by the sliding bolts having been fastened, an animal had ripped open the top of the garbage container. They either gave up or it was something small and they got in because the opening was not large. Time to call the rangers.

In other news, tonight is the scholarship recognition reception and a talk by Bill McKibben, environmentalist and activist. Tomorrow morning I share my Amazon research with the class and it's due the next day. Friday a short paper is due for Finance class. I wrote it about Edith Wharton's portrayal of the newly rich ("nouveau riche") in her novel The House of Mirth. It's a good read, people. The book, not my paper.

After that, it's a continuance of the ridiculously close reading I have to do every night in order to have something to say in Male, Female, Other, reading journals for Finance, and then a 12-15 page paper for each. Ideas, anyone? Oh, and we had this visitor in the computer lab the other day:

Any info you want to give us, John? I heard it's a luna moth.

Also, in the best news EVER, Mom and Dad Freyberg got a new puppy!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah, it's worthy of that many exclamation points. I've been waiting for this day to come and now we can't even squeeze her for a long while. Sad story. She's an adorable golden/yellow lab mix, so think of your favorite puppy calendar. She looks like that chubby little yellow pup on it.

'Merica! at Moosalamoo and Robert Frost's cabin

God Bless America!

I rang in Saturday morning with picking up after disgusting campers who not only trashed their sites, complete with aerosol cans, whole ears of corn, broken bottles all over, firework casings strewn all about, and their fire pit filled with garbage despite being the site closest to the garbage and recycling receptacles. I decided that National Forest Campgrounds with their lawlessness brings out the worst in people, particularly on the 4th of July. On the other hand, what better way to celebrate the country you love, than heading up to the a government run campground and trashing it?

 And in happier news, here are some pictures of the Frost cabin

The Frost Cabin

Frost cabin, but that's not Frost reading there. 

The view from his cabin

campground envy 2: Branbury State Park

When I was looking for campground hosting opportunities, I first tried Branbury State Park, a very popular family and swimming state park. They wanted to have us be their hosts, and I was excited because they have shower facilities (and electricity which isn't as important), but when they found out we wanted to live in our yurt, they said "Oh, we don't have room for that," which means, "That's weird and you're not coming here."

Off we went to Moosalamoo who were so thrilled to have us! I wonder why. Anyway, to make our lives sad, we went to Branbury Saturday to check it out and see if Mom and John should suffer with
us at Moosalamoo, or if it's worth it to make

Branbury the homebase while they visit. Naturally, it's freaking beautiful. The campsites are opposite a ridiculously busy beach/lake/state park area that was swarming with people. The lake is stunning and my mom has to paddleboard on it while she's here. The lake runs up against mountains, so it's very reminiscent of the Adirondacks which makes sense. The pictures don't do it justice, but I tried.

The campground is lovely, winding up a hillside, complete with gigantic rock outcroppings and

waterfalls cascading along sites. Nearly all the sites are big enough for the yurt, and many have lean-tos, something we miss very much from our time at Hyde. To be honest, it made me a little sick to go there. We just kept saying idiotic things like, "Well, our campground has privacy" and "Well, this is farther away from Bread Loaf," but it's probably 5-10 more minutes by car and it's paradise out there. We had ice cream and a snack at this little shop before heading back to Hyde.

Tom, the Minnesotan camper (who bears a striking resemblance to Bryan's dad and not just because we miss him) let us know that there was music at the Ripton Community House that night, so we invited him to join us at the school picnic at the Robert Frost's farm, which is called the Homer Noble Farm (owner Frost bought it from). We had dinner there and checked out Frost's cabin. It's usually locked, but they opened it up and we were able to go in and see the way he lived when he was there. It's a beautiful cabin and Bryan said it's his dream cabin.

Round Mountain of Santa Fe

The music at the Ripton Community Coffee House was a wonderful, very eclectic mix of steel guitars, bagpipe, accordion, and bongo drums. One guy played the bagpipe or the trumpet while simultaneously playing the accordion. They'd be playing a sort of sweet, gentle song, and then unexpectedly break out into bongo drums and bagpipe. I'm really glad we went and Katelynn even had a Paul Rudd sighting there. Rare stuff.

Then it was off to the strange mating ritual called the Bread Loaf Eighties (not old ladies) Dance.

a Frosty weekend

With Madonna still ringing in my head from last night's 80s dance, I'm up and at 'em as they say, working in the computer lab. Since I'm the only person in here, I'm working pretty hard.

Moxie tackling the largest of the very stuck trees.

The other day Dan and I met for a puppy playdate at the Robert Frost Interpretive Trails near campus. The trails weave through some pretty woods and have Frost poems in semi-appropriate places. The important thing is that the bugs are not as bad as the Moosalamoo Trail. My favorite part is the place they chose to put "The Road Not Taken" which famously ends with the lines,

and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

You're at a fork in the road when you read the poem, but the trail makes a loop and you end up exactly where you started. What a difference!

Bryan and I went back there on Friday and a bee flew up my shorts and stung me. GREAT! 

In other news, the crew met at Kate and Josh's (Kate, if you're reading this, I did it!) absolutely beautiful cabin. The owner of the Robert Frost Mountain Cabins sounds as nice as Irene (the massage therapist with the most generosity - she honestly offered to let us borrow her Jeep for the rest of our trip so I didn't have to drive Bryan to and from work. Luckily, (because they wanted him to work full-time, they had a "mutually agreed upon parting) and we don't need it). Anyway, he's building these cabins with lovely little screen porches which are an absolute must here.

soggy campground tales

My shoes, what were once beautiful books, my folders, my clothing, the yurt floor, and my brain are soggy and wet this morning. As my beloved and ever-helpful mother reminded me, all adventures have good and bad (true) and I did complain one time, in one blog last year about missing water in Santa Fe. Oh, the irony. Serves me right (my kind mother did not say that last part).

Since the campground is perpetually nearly empty, I haven't many campground host stories to tell, but I do have one...

Tuesday night in the evening a group of backpackers triumphantly marched into Moosalamoo proclaiming, "We're almost there. For real."

When I drove out of the campground to head back to campus for dinner (very strange General Tso's chicken), I checked in with them, made sure they knew who was the head honcho 'round these parts, etc. I wasn't wearing my hat though...

Anywho, they were from Camp Kewaydin, and as their fearless leader Cameron explained, they were supposed to be hiking The Long Trail, "Vermont's footpath in the wilderness," and got "terribly, horribly" lost. I guess they figured out where they were and couldn't get back on the TLT, so they located Moosalamoo and called it home for the night. I gave my condolences and off I went.

Yesterday morning as I'm trying to ingest coffee to return to the land of the living, here comes Cameron to our door. This is a first. Evidently, terribly lost but now found camp group was once again in peril with a very sick co-leader. The stomach flu has hit his co-leader but all he wants to know is if we get cell service. Of course we don't, for about 15 miles. He explains that their van is coming to get them but he is on day 2 of a 9 day Long Trail trip and without a co-leader, he can't go on with the boys. Sad story, eh?

I walked over later to make sure the Israel, the co-leader, didn't need to see a doctor in town and in came their van to pick them up. I'll never know their fate, nor will you. Did they wait for another leader to arrive or did they abandon the trip of the summer? Anti-climactic, eh?

One more thing: a Minnesotan was at the campground last night too. Bryan played Minnesota nice with him.

on Amazon women and urban kayaking

 This week Bryan started working at Rosie's which is a bit of a logistical household nightmare. Also, I've been digging in to my research of Amazon warrior women for Male, Female, Other.  It involves reading things like below. The basic myth is that these women were part of a "warrelike" people and most of the husbands were slain in a battle. Devastated and wanting to be together in their grief, they killed most of the remaining men and basically lived in a culture and kingdom of warrior women. Supposedly they seared off one breast in order to be able to better shoot their bows and make war on surrounding countries. Interesting, eh? That's what I'm up to.