Surprise! We're in Vermont!

Spontaneous travel is not really our thing, so it's kind of a big deal that I am blogging from a hotel room in Vermont.  Another thing I'm not usually very good at is pulling off surprises, so it's also a big deal that our trip had an ulterior motive AND we pulled it off without a hitch.

About two weeks ago, Alan and I were having one of, like, thirteen summer logistical planning conversations to date involving running plans, kids camps, my vacation time, tenting in Acadia, etc during which we decided to forgo our usual Memorial Day house-party  with "the gang" [thanks for understanding, guys: we hope you had a great weekend!] and instead drive to Vermont to:

a) visit my sister (Helen), brother-in-law (Rich), and niece/god-daughter (Samantha) who frequently come to Maine and often suggest we go see them and

2) surprise my friend/running mentor Emilie of onemominmaine by showing up to cheer for her at the Vermont City Marathon.

So...we carefully made our plans and giggled about them with several mutual friends.  We shot emails back and forth with Helen, got an awesome hotel rate thanks to her work, scoped out marathon info and running routes on GoogleEarth, packed a giant bag of road snacks, made more trips to WalMart in 3 days than we have in 3 months, and crafted "Go Emilie!" posters.

We got on the road Friday morning--later than we had planned, but we had also allowed more travel time than we really needed, so we still arrived in beautiful St. Albans, VT in time for dinner at Hoss' Dogg House, a tiny roadside stand with the BEST FRIES ON THE PLANET.  Then it was off to the hotel for reading aloud (we're working our way through Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series) and a good night's sleep.

 On Saturday, after an awesome hotel breakfast featuring waffles you make yourself with the flip-over waffle iron built right into the counter, we met up with Helen & Sam at the local Farmer's Market where Nancy had an orange tea cake that was heavenly. After that, Alan and Nancy went running but that's going to be a separate post, partly because we have to go back tomorrow to take pictures of where we ran, for posterity. Later, we had dinner at Helen's, then it was back to the hotel and early to bed.

Sunday (today), we got up early and drove to Burlington to see Emilie.  Here is the picture that sums up her reaction to seeing us at several points throughout the course, screaming her name insanely. She definitely did not expect to see us and this shot is totally "Wait, what?! Why are you here??"

Further explanation to follow in a future post.  After watching 3600 people run a marathon, I'm a little ashamed to say it, but I'm exhausted.  And everyone else is snoring, so that's all for tonight!