We realized a couple of weeks ago that we are driving between Virginia and Vermont every single month from May to September. I suppose it’s possible we’ll do an October trip, now that I think about it.

That’s 720 miles each way, minimum. When you put in the side trips (like stopping in Rupert at my parents’ house, or dropping Bee off at Bennington) it’ll be more.

We did the first trip over Memorial Day weekend, driving north in weekend traffic on Thursday so we could be at the lake on Friday for lunch. The weather was supposed to be disgusting, 50 and raining, and we packed for that likelihood. (Yes, my new jacket came in handy!) The goal was to take advantage of Dump Days, the one weekend a year when we can dump things like old rugs and even an ancient refrigerator; despite filling a dumpster in a day and a half last summer, there was an appallingly large amount of junk left in the house. I think we must have gotten decision fatigue and could no longer sanely decide what to keep and what to pitch.

Here are a few photos of what we saw and did. We completely forgot to take before pictures even though we mentioned it more than once on the drive up. The screen porch was stacked with furniture and boxes; Marge’s bathroom was not accessible because we’d piled it high with more stuff. We had to clear the floor space, you see, because the wooden floors we’d unearthed so happily the previous summer were being sanded and finished.

Inside:

Dire predictions notwithstanding, the weather was glorious. Lunch on the deck every day. We saw (and heard) loons. Watched the clouds. Got a little sunburned.

The crowning glory though had to be the fire rainbow we saw while eating lunch on Saturday. (Full disclosure - I had no idea what this was and had to look it up. I was calling it a horizontal rainbow, or a sky-bow.)

Yep, 28 hours in the car over 5 days? Totally worth it. I can’t wait to be up there for an extended period of time this summer!