What a long strange trip it's been

I'm finally home !! As I sit here eating my homemade raw milk kefir with organic granola and fresh fruit and drinking my green tea with raw honey (I told you it was strange)I get to reflect on a rather full and really excellent week. Just before Marc and I left for VT last week I got a call from NOFA to tell me that a spot had opened up in the work exchange program .While it shuffled up the plans a bit it saved me two hundred dollars (always a good thing). The trip up to VT was fairly uneventful for the first two hours or so until we hit a closed bridge up by Stratton ,VT .Of course there were no detour signs so we ending up adding "a few" extra miles to the trip.We did finally arrive at Grout pond after about 4 hours of travel . The place is so far out we actually passed East Podunk rd (really). When we arrived we were greeted by a message board with the rules and large signs welcoming us to "BEAR COUNTRY" . I know Marc can take on insurgents so I asked him if he had any anti- bear training. His response was " Oh yeah ,I can run faster than you" so heart warming . We decided that we would take on the wilderness anyways and unloaded the boat . As we rowed out in search of a campsite we were both awed at just how beautiful this place is .We were surrounded the mountains' majesty ,God's handywork at it's best. From the plumes of wispy clouds on a powder blue background to the rows of neatly grown pine trees the beauty was everywhere. There are only eleven campsites on the pond and of course we got the last one , so we would be the appetizers if the "bear Patrol" decided to go out for people food. Oh well it would add to the experience. We were able to get set up just before dark . A funny thing happened as we were cooking our dinner ,I was going to put on some music but I stopped because I didn't want to disturb the pristine setting . We hiked for about seven hours the next day and encountered one of the most ironic things. In the middle of nowhere we found two of the big "recovery putting people back to work" signs that the Fed wasted two hundred million dollars on to let us know they were on the ball .It was on a foot path that was probably traveled by fifty people a year. Who needs a bridge to nowhere! Did I mention there were no mosquitos?