Calvin Coolidge and a little hiking

The Bridge of Death!

My girlfriend came up to visit last week. This is an account of some of our adventures (not included: watching Hook, seeing Joseph Smith birthplace, driving around). The first day we were near Rutland visiting friends (and an adorable baby), so we were going to knock out that one mile from the Clarendon Shelter to rt. 103. I can't read a map and we wound up going in the other direction, over Clarendon gorge and to the Minvera Hinchey shelter (2.7 miles, ~'1000 feet). Getting over the gorge required going over a wobbly suspension bridge, which required the boyfriend rocking it back and forth, Temple of Doom-style ("Hang on lady, we going for a ride!"- Short Round).

We scrambled up the hill, watched some birds and planes fly around the Rutland airport, and kept hiking. Eventually I figured out that I'd made a mistake in my navigation, and we decided to keep going and go 5.2 miles.

We had a good day for being outside

The next day we decided to get our nerd on and go to the Calvin Coolidge State Historical Site. The big parking lot was so full that cars (from Tennessee, Arizona, California...) were parked in the grass. I don't feel quite that strongly about President Coolidge either way. I don't really know that much meaningful about him: his wife Grace basically masterminded his rise to power and he was sworn in by his father in Vermont after Harding was murdered by his wife. Also, his Vice President, Charles Dawes, won the Nobel Prize and had a son named Rufus Fearing Dawes, who drowned in a lake. We eschewed the crowded historical site for Plymouth Notch Cemetery, where Coolidge and his wife (and about 60 other Coolidges) are buried. I had heard good reviews of the place, and it lived up to its billing as a gorgeous old cemetery. We also overheard some older folks swapping stories about all of the presidential burial sites they'd seen. Apparently some people make a serious effort to see every site (and probably root for people like Jimmy Carter to "go ahead and die, already"). This seems like a worthwhile way to spend one's retirement.

On the way back from Plymouth, we went by Quechee Gorge. We walked about a mile across the bridge and then down under it. Then we drove home and ate some cake.

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