Living By Instinct: Discovering Plainfield, Vermont

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Plainfield Vermont Food CooperativeNot Just Aimless Wanderers

Not having to watch a clock has given us the really precious gift of being able to go with the flow, follow our intuition and just let things happen. How sad that life as working fools, we are all too busy to meander down streets of different places, or stop to chat and get to know people. Why should this great learning experience be reserved for retired folks only?

Not charting a strict course is less about aimlessly wandering around the map, and more about listening to intuition, so that we can open ourselves up to what lies ahead. Doing so has brought us many adventures, and helped us to learn tons about where we might want to set down roots.

We Found a Contender: Plainfield, Vermont

Recently, after leaving Burlington and moving toward New Hampshire, Jim and I were completely starving for some grub. We kept looking for a good place to turn into, but the countryside’s driveways don’t give much room to stop an 8,000 pound trailer. Finally, we spotted one of Vermont’s unobtrusive roadside business announcement billboards (Vermont, Maine, Alaska and Hawaii are the only four states that have outlawed billboards).

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Maple Syrup Taste Test

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Maple Syrup Taste TestBack in Wisconsin, we picked up some local maple syrup. As good as it was, we desperately tried to finish it before we got to Burlington where we just had to pick up some pure Vermont maple syrup straight from the source. Then I realized, why wait? Let’s get some from both states and have a taste test.

Below are the results from our head to head comparison of these two pure maple syrups.

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Stephen King’s Number One Faaayuuuun…

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Having been an avid reader of nearly all the early Stephen King classics, our stay in Bangor, Maine would not be complete without a drive-by of the horror master’s manor. Surprisingly, it is easy to find, and very accessible. As to not disturb mister King, we rode by on our bicycles, took a quick photo and quickly fled the scene. Watch the movie of our …

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Live Free or Die, or Shut Up

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Revolutionary War Hero General John StarkWe’ve actually been receiving some flack for our post about reasons to consider emigration to Canada. You won’t, however, see these flaming remarks here on the blog because, well, it is our blog and we don’t intend to give these so called patriots the time of day or glory of assuming their comments actually get to us.

So as mother always said, if you don’t have something nice to say… don’t bother because you’re just wasting your time with comments that get sent directly to the spam pile. After all this is indeed America as these right wing fascists so proudly declare, and we are proud to have the freedom of using our delete button.

While they call us “unamerican” [sic] and would gladly help us pack our bags, they’ve got us all wrong and are merely substantiating our beliefs about certain factions that continue to make this country a target for international enmity.

How appropriate that this has all occurred as we crossed the state with one of the best state mottos. While we enjoyed our stay in neighboring Vermont ? “Freedom and Unity“ ? New Hampshire’s “Live Free or Die“ is now our favorite state motto. Attributed to New Hampshire Revolutionary War Hero General John Stark, this slogan says it all.

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Beware of Moose

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Beware of Moose when driving New England Roads. RV and Auto collisions with moose cause severe damage and injuries. Readers share their stories and photos.

Third Time’s a Charm

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Hammock TimeWhen we embarked on this trip, I often imagined kicking back in my hammock with my Powerbook and enjoying my new office. Well, the first couple times that I have actually strung up the thing I ended up not spending any time in it at all. If my hammock time wasn?t called on account of rain, there was either too much on my RV honey do list or simply too much of the outdoors to go enjoy.

I am now happy to say that my vision has finally come true. The view from my new office is well worth the wait. The only thing missing is our internet connection.

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But Can We Stand the Weather?

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We’ve traveled many miles searching for our ideal community. A few times, we thought we might have found it. But . . . The thought of moving into a small town is nice, but few have the diversity that we feel makes life more interesting. We crave the solitude of 40 acres in the sticks, but fear we might go nuts being so isolated. And …

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The Bed and Breakfast Lifestyle in Oakville, Toronto

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Canada Bed and Breakfast Melfort House Heather Donaldson When Jim and I first considered changing gears and starting a new business, running a Bed and Breakfast or lodge was high on our list. So I did some research, and read two books that helped us narrow down our focus, if we decide to make the leap. The books, “So You Want to Be an Innkeeper” and “I’m Living Your Dream Life,” dive into the gory details about the daily demands of catering to tourists. I highly recommend them if you’ve ever considered running a tourism business.

What’s It Like Running a Bed and Breakfast?

We’re still considering this type of business as an option, so when we checked into Melfort Cottage in Toronto, we were on a mission to learn more about that line of work. Melfort Cottage is a small three room Bed and Breakfast, run by Heather Donaldson, a retired schoolteacher. Located in the middle of the posh Oakville area, Melfort Cottage is perfectly situated in an historic neighborhood, within walking distance to restaurants and shopping.

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When Is Enough Enough?

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Toronto Ontario Canada SkylineLet’s get one thing straight: I am not a pinko communist! But you’d have to be blind not to notice the scandalous events of our government over the last few years, and any thinking person has had to ask themself; what is wrong with this picture? Personally, I’m fed up, and sadly, I’m not so sure that anything can change the mess that big money and nepotism has created in the U.S. Thus, my tirade about living in the U.S. . . .

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Epilogue: Shaking the Family Tree

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Toronto City HallRen? asked me if I felt any more Candian now. Truth is, I have always felt part Canuck ? though my home team would be the Maple Leafs ? since I learned my mother was from Toronto and I went to the Snow Festival in Quebec as a child. After all, I am supposedly half French Canadian and half Scottish Irish. And one of my closest, dearest friends hails from Winnipeg eh. But I have to admit it felt good being Canadian at least for a day. Especially since that day happened to be September 11th.

It was actually nice to not be bombarded by the regular American media suspects forcing us to remember in vivid detail the tragic events of 2001, as they have every year for the past six. The only sign whatsoever that it was in fact 9/11 was a group of peaceful demonstrators in downtown Toronto proposing that the World Trade Center tragedy was an inside job. And personally, I was glad the morning paper didn’t carry a full page image of the burning towers that has been burned into my psyche the very day it happened.

Coverage of events at Ground Zero made it to page eighteen of Canada’s national newspaper. The front page was reserved for a 30th anniversary tribute to the beating death of Steven Biko by South African police. I found the story educational, enlightening, and touching. Perhaps it was buried deep in U.S. papers, I don’t know. But I doubt this important reminder of apartheid in the world made the front pages.

I just had to play Peter Gabriel’s “Biko” from Shaking the Tree on the iPod as we crossed the border back into the U.S. after being questioned by a stern guy playing the role of a Nazi officer. So do I feel a bit more Canadian? You bet eh. And it feels good.

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Climbing Down the Family Tree

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Jim and Rene at the AltarWe haven’t blogged in a few days because we took some time to trace my roots with a brief trip into Toronto. While we accomplished our mission of finding the church where my parents were married and the cemetery where my grandparents are buried, we also discovered that the trip was far too brief to discover everything we wanted to know about living in Ontario, Canada.

Although we have budgeted for a few hotel nights each month on this trip, our stay at Melford Cottage Bed and Breakfast in Oakville Ontario was the first time we have left the comfort of our trailer since selling our stick house and putting our bedroom furniture in storage over three months ago. While it did feel a bit weird leaving all our possessions in the trailer at Four Mile Creek NY State Park campground to take a little vacation from our “vacation”, Heather Donaldson’s home served as a great base to search for my Mom’s roots around Toronto and gave us a chance to reconsider what the future holds for us once again.

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The rundown on our WordPress plug-ins

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Readers who have chosen not to register for this blog and receive notification of posts and comments will be happy to know that we have just activated the Subscribe To Comments WordPress plug-in.

Beneath the comments form at the bottom of every blog post, there is now a convenient check box that will enable you to receive follow-up comments via email. This is just one of the various plug-ins we have installed to make the LiveWorkDream blog better.

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