up, down, all around.

Yesterday, we headed up to Burlington for the Vermont International Film Festival, where Garret's film, We Will Forget  was screening.  We had never been that far north in Vermont, so we were interested to see what it would be like.

The first thing we learned is: this little state is not as little as it seems!  For some reason people tend to regard Vermont as everything being kind of super close to one another.  And yes, it did only take us 3 hours to get from bottom to top, but still - that's not exactly a hop and a skip.  Nevertheless, it was a pretty drive - autumn continues to embrace the trees with glory.

The other big thing we learned was: there aren't rest stops along VT 'highways' the way we came to appreciate them on the NY State Thruway!  If you want McDonald's, you need to hop off the main road and into a town and find one.  At each exit there are blue signs with arrows that say things like "Food this way" "Gas that way", etc.  You basically pick a direction and drive and figure it out along the way.  That felt adventurous and fun on the way there and then a wee bit arduous on the way back home at night.

Burlington was nice!  The weather was kind of a bummer, so walking around wasn't as fun as it could be on a nicer day.  There were plenty of cute shops and restaurants, though.  I was kind of taken by how many typical mall stores there were - J Crew, Gap, Urban Outfitters... I've rarely seen brand name stores like that anywhere in VT, so it was interesting to see.  Nevertheless, it wasn't a big old mall - it was an open air, cute little town.  It reminded me a lot of Saratoga, which is only twenty miles or so from where I grew up.

I don't have many pictures of the day (my phone was dying) but here are two, at least:

We made a coffee stop along the way... 

At the screening at the Vermont International Film Fest!