It was my family’s first time in Maine. Actually, Elise has been once when she was 6 months old and I have been twice, but it was all of us together’s first time.
We stayed at Huttopia, a glamping camp group for three nights. It was so relaxing. Then we stayed at Great Diamond Island, one of the islands off of Portland where you have to ride a ferry. We ate a lot of lobster rolls on this trip.
I used a risograph printed journal that I had picked up at Tiny Town Surplus in Tucson, Arizona for this journal.
I find Brossard much more family friendly than Montreal. It’s easier to park and there are just as many food choices.
This is my favorite restaurant in Brossard. The shopping center it is in is scary but it is homey and cute inside this cafe. We’ve eaten here through various name changes, ongoing maintenance issues, and even a fire alarm going off. 😅
I feel like once you’ve tried the lamb shank you’ll understand because the food is truly incredible.
I tabled at an event for the first time since having a baby. I can say that I don’t miss tabling and I enjoy not depending on sales for my business. However, I do enjoy meeting other artists and creators and trading. All these zines were traded with other artists in Burlington, Vermont.
Another trip to our beloved Montreal. We’ve been living in Vermont for less than two years and we’ve been eight times. Each time, our heart swells a little more by how much we love Montreal.
Casey and I call our last trip our best trip, because we did it all right. We brought guests with us – two people who have never been to Canada. We parked in the right place. We mastered the subway by now and were able to seamlessly ride it to our destination.
My new favorite place is Marche Jean Talon, which my sister found on a map and turned out to a dream. Like a European market, it’s packed, bustling, so much going on, so much yummy food from around the world. It’s probably one of my favorite places.
If you hadn’t caught on to my life yet, I run a literary and art magazine called Canto Cutie that showcases the work of Cantonese diasporic artists and writers. I’ve been creating, printing, and distributing this magazine since 2020, when I was living in an apartment in San Jose. Pretty much day one of the pandemic, when I had a sudden influx of free time, I immediately sprung into action with this idea that’s been cooking on my mind for years. Ever since, it’s been a big part of my life.
Now I continue working on the magazine in the sticks of Vermont. Sometimes I leave our neck of the woods to table at zine festivals and independent press events, which brings me out to the *big city*.
Late 2022, I took the magazine on an unofficial tour! First to Boston for the Boston Art Book Fair and then Brooklyn for Zine Fair NYC. In Boston, I stayed in New Bedford, which was an hour away from Boston.
Every time I’m back in a big city, my first thought is “this is fun but I’m ready to go home.” I think I was meant for rural living because while I enjoy eating out, I’m done in like one day. Obviously there are lots of days where I want to scream because I’m tired of cooking and just want to get margs at happy hour but I’ve surprisingly adjusted well to living without the conveniences I had at my fingertips from when I was 18 to 28 years old.
The Boston Art Book Fair was three days but it was fun because it was very well organized, in a perfect venue with tons of foot traffic and great tablers. I met some really great people and was able to expand the reach of the project, and sell a lot of magazines.
While tabling can be exhausting, you use up your social energy really quick, one of the perks is food. They were experimenting with this new brand of seltzers, like an unofficial sponsor, and they were delicious. I probably had about 20 over the course of three days. We were also treated to free perogis, which I wasn’t aware you could crave but months later I wish I was eating perogis.
I met a lot of people with similar projects – like an AAPI oriented zine and collective in Rhode Island, a Risograph artist in New York, a queer zinester based locally but working on their first comic book.
These types of events remind you how lucky you are that you can create, and to create amongst other creators that you respect and admire is the ultimate source of fuel. It feeds me, refreshes me, and reminds me we’re all just drawing lil pictures at home and this won’t accomplish much in the big picture of global economic systems, but damn is it fulfilling.
I went out on a limb and traded a lot of zines, I also bought a lot of art. I bought a lot of Risograph prints and original zines and comics that I can’t wait to share.
In 2022, I took the magazine on an unofficial tour! First to Boston for the Boston Art Book Fair and then Brooklyn for Zine Fair NYC. In Boston, I stayed in New Bedford for three nights.
New Bedford is a small town before the Cape about an hour outside of Boston. I had a lot of fun staying with my friends that I had met in the year prior. We had done a lot of work together as part of an arts nonprofit that they were an executive director of. It hit me hard when they had to move away from Vermont. I get pretty emotional when people have to leave but I was excited to see them.
New Bedford seems sleepy on the outside but they have some really cool places like little Portugal which we had amazing food at and Kilburn Mill where there are boutiques and indie clothing shops.
Richmond is a cute town in Vermont that some friends have told me that I should move to. Too bad, because we love where we live already! I’ve been there a few times, and each time has been really magical. The first time I really got to hang out here was with my friend Nicole, who we met online! She was also new to Vermont. One sticky summer night we headed to the Bolton Pot Holes, an icy cold swimming hole.
We shared drinks on a blanket and braved letting the water come past our knees because of how cold it is. The melted snow water from the mountain drips down in waterfalls all spring and the remaining water pools at the bottom, making it stupid cold.
That night, we had dinner at a cool Asian fusion joint in town and it’s probably to this day, one of the best burgers I’ve ever had in Vermont.
Another good friend has invited me to Richmond a few times later in the summer. It’s a small town that really like-minded people have flocked to. We spent a fun summer night here, playing music (well, she was playing music, I was enjoying it). We reheated bulk carnitas and I busted out mango-juice vodkas at the only pace acceptable for three ladies on a Friday night. Two vodkas in, I rode my first electric bike here. A mutual friend rolled it out of her garage and let us ride down the the street in it.
Finally, I was there last night, where I said goodbye to that friend. We had spent many summer mornings swimming in the reservoir, and prior to Vermont she had lived in many other states, from the backwoods of Alaska with only an outhouse for plumbing, to where I met her, in a funky loft above the town’s only gas station. I don’t know why, but I was emotional when I found out she was leaving, and emotional the entire time during her going away party. I know friendships are fleeting, after all, haven’t I left so many places? But it was time for somebody else to leave and that was really sad. We ate pizza made from the house-turned-restaurant next door, and sat around another friend’s living room, at a gathering where there were more dogs than people. The town’s veterinarian was there. A mix of old and young people. I felt lucky to be a part of that room at that time, and strangely empty when my friend and I hugged at the door when it was time to leave.
South Hero is the southernmost Champlain island and only a thirty minute drive from my home. Summer weekends are where the Islands really shine, with their farmer’s markets and Vermonters going to their dachas.
Except they don’t call them dachas, they call them “camp” and we’ve always been jealous of our friends who go to camp, because we want one someday.
One afternoon I stopped by for a Filipino Festival here. It was held at a small farm owned by a Filipino family. Tents with all kinds of foods are set up in their driveway. I don’t eat much pork at home, so I pig out on pig buttocks and pork belly and everything I love about Asian food.
Something that has been irritating me a lot lately is when people say “oh, I didn’t know there was a __ community in Vermont” and it’ll apply to say, the Filipino community. I’m not irritated in that everyone should know everything about Vermont, but more that your acknowledgement equals their existence. I asked my husband what constitutes a community? Like, I am the only Cantonese person I know in my town, does that mean my town has a Cantonese community? He said with just one other family, it does. Given how big my town is, then that means there’s a Cantonese community. And it’s interesting because in South Hero, I guess there is a community because on this farm, the family and all their friends are able to hold such food-centered events regularly, at least a few times per year so that means “Vermont has a Filipino community”.
We are in the US, so there’s every kind of community – everyone the world over knows this country is a melting pot of cultures and immigrants. Since living here and working as an ESL teacher, most of my friends are people of color, but I know that’s not everyone’s experience. I know that being a minority in Vermont, I can have a fundamentally different experience than many other Vermonters. People are surprised we have truck to haul hay, straw, and more for our mini-orchard, but then some people are not surprised and are curious to know what we grow and what animals we raise. Some people are disgusted to know we have guns, but some people are like, of course you have guns, it’s Vermont after all, you’re a minority if you don’t have a gun. I’ve met people who don’t know a single Vermonter with a gun, so they have staunch opinions about gun ownership, which is a little bizarre in my opinion because Burlington can surely be a bubble.
Every week I drive a neighbor’s kid to field hockey practice and take her to art class sometimes. People in Vermont will make statements about there being no people of color in Vermont, and here we are, two people of color existing and seeing each other weekly, and can be utterly confused by that statement. I eat mostly at the Nepali and Vietnamese restaurant down the street, so when people say there isn’t ethnic food in Vermont I’m also confused because that’s most of my diet here – the Asian food I make at home and the Asian takeout from our most visited places.
I guess all this to say that I’m irritated when people remark that there isn’t such a community in Vermont, my immediate eye-roll, because I exist, and we exist, and we don’t need to be something you can visit like a Little Italy or Chinatown or something in order to exist.
We’ve had over twelve guests come stay at our guest room this summer. It’s partly due to my urging of everyone come visit us, but also because Vermont is the perfect vacation destination in the summer. There’s no place like it. Californians can’t get enough of the green, New Yorkers can’t get enough of the peaceful, untouched wilderness. A friend told me my Instagram page acts as the Vermont tourism board and I couldn’t agree more. My excitement radiates off of social media, and it’s not a curated selection of what I want people to see; it truly is that wonderful. I’ve only been here one year, but my heart swells with how much I truly love the home we’ve made here.
My favorite guest of all this summer was Mike. Mike is Casey’s dad and I lived with him for a short period of time when Casey and I were first dating. When I had to leave to go live in Russia, we got drunk and I told him he’s like a second dad to me and he is a handful of older people that I cherish because they always have my back.
We all met up in Long Island for my brother-in-law’s wonderful engagement party. A weekend of fun and festivities, and so much good eating. We returned home with Mike and while we all had to work the week away in our home in the woods, we took time to have a lot of fun. We took Mike to Nepali and Vietnamese food. Whenever we visit Mike, we always get Asian buffet and Korean bonchon so it’s always a lot of fun.
My friend and I just started a small business holding paint-and-sip classes and he got to come to our first one ever. It’s been a lot of hard work and I was proud of how much fun he and other people were having at the event we put together, that I facilitated. One thing Casey and I noticed was that Vermonters loved Mike, because he’s friendly, and fun, and knows a lot about old stuff, which is basically what all of Vermont is.
Casey gave Mike a book of Vermont’s civil war history just a few months prior so he was excited to visit museums and see old forts. So many friends recommended that we take Mike to Shelburne Museum, and I was so glad that my first trip to this outdoor theme park (let’s be honest, it’s hardly a museum in how special it is). Shelburne Museum is a campus of oddities, from a huge steam ship in the middle of a field, to fancy homes they carted from other parts of Vermont to be a part of the museum. We saw weapons, laughed it up with fun docents who told us secrets of the exhibits, and loved looking at old barns with preserved machinery. We saw an old certificate with Abraham Lincoln’s signature, really the highlight of the museum.
I found some giant puffball mushrooms in a field, honestly a mark of a really spectacular day. Shelburne is about 45 minutes from home, so on the ride back we stopped for ice cream, picked up local coffee for Mike to take home, and walked a little in a part of Lake Champlain’s embankment that I had never been.
Summer is over now, with the leaves falling, but I had an amazing time when Mike came. Going to the Shelburne Museum was a blast and I’m glad we got to experience that together.
This trip was our first time where we spent the night! And our first time using public transport. By now, we knew our way around and could lead others around the city. This time, we actually went into Notre Dame, instead of just hanging around outside.
First of all, it’s impossible to find. It’s underground, one tiny door in a weird closed/dead shopping breezeway kind of thing, but we found it. The entire museum was just three rooms, some installation art and short films. We got lost there for a while.
I really love planning Casey’s birthday. For one birthday while we were living in San Jose, we drove up to San Francisco and enjoyed a day of eating mushroom risotto at a fancy French restaurant. Foraging and identifying mushrooms was our favorite pastime at that point.
For this year’s birthday, I wanted to treat him to Korean food, his favorite cuisine. I poked around a few Asian Montreal Facebook groups to find out which were the best Korean bbq places in town and we drove up to have an amazing lunch. It rained a lot so we had to dash there and dash to a chocolate cafe for dessert immediately after, ha. We got so wet and so cold we bought all new outfits at Uniqlo, one of our favorite stores anyway.
We read books at two different bookshops, acted as bystanders during a protest, and found a bulgogi spot off of St. Catherine’s for dinner. The street is filled with shops and great restaurants.
Montreal is our favorite place to visit since we’ve moved to Vermont and we’ve visited three times in the span of a few months. It’s cosmopolitan feel gives us the comforts of all the foods we missed about California. It feels European in the way people behave and dress. We love spending weekends here.
We discovered a funky new neighborhood in Montreal. Mile End is where many Orthodox Jews live, so there are many bagel shops. There’s also a small little Lululemon store here. My cousin Molly and her husband visit Lululemon in every city they visit. We also stopped into what I thought would be an Asian snack shop with it’s pink walls and cartoon character murals – it ended up being “the only pink museum in the world” run by an eccentric dude.
Mile End is next to Mount Royal Parc, a random giant hill in the middle of the city. We hiked through it to get to Old Montreal, where we visited the Notre Dame square. I discovered an Arab diasporic bookshop. We happened to catch a basketball tournament with women in 3×3 teams from all over the world. We rooted for Latvia in a game against Spain. We bought baos The excitement of being in a big city was overpowering. We walked miles and went back to the hand-pulled noodle joint for dinner that Casey and I discovered on the trip prior.
Our first foray up to Montreal was with two of our friends from California. Surprise – the border crossing was extremely easy and it took only 1.5 hours to make it to downtown.
We walked around the Montreal Museum of Art and then the Botanical Gardens. Because it was our first time there, we chose easy destinations to drive to, nothing we had to navigate tricky parallel parking, obeying signs we couldn’t read because they were in French.
The Garden was huge and beautiful. We loved the themes and took so many photos. It was a rainy day, so we had to run under a Chinese pagoda or sneak into an insect exhibit to get away from the raindrops whenever it started to pour.
I bravely chose a poutine restaurant in little Portugal, also known as Hochelaga. We walked there from the Botanical Gardens and had our very first French Canadian meal!
One Saturday, I drove down to Western Massachusetts for a zine fair and had the time of my life. Making zines have brought me to places I have never been and has been the best ice-breaker in new environments. I’ve taken part of zine fests in New Haven, Northampton, and Watertown, and a book festival in Woodstock. I would have never thought to come to these places on my own, without a purpose, so I’m thankful for zines that they have helped me come to love New England and see it in new ways.
Northampton has the charm of Vermont, but it’s in Western Mass, so it has way more people and the historic downtowns are much more developed. The event took place in an arts center. When I got there, there were dance classes and art exhibits taking place. The organizers were all super cool and I felt like an invited guest. I tabled next to an artist who made prints of natural and organic forms, and an awesome artist who ran a small thrift-and-arts nonprofit that does Risograph printing. I felt insanely cool that she wanted to trade zines with me.
They sold vegan pizza outside the event. Someone ran a print shop that unofficially only printed black goth-style tees and totes. Another zinester made a giant cat-pig-skull face and made it her emblem, printing it with Risograph in hot pink in giant, 24 inch prints. A brother and sister duo made laser-cut earrings in whimsical shapes, of course I had to purchase a bunch.
I felt like Northampton was the coolest place ever and I can’t wait to be back.
I came for the first time in 2018 with my friend Samantha. I got my bearings – the Isabella Gartner Stewart Museum, Faneuil Hall, Boston Market, Little Italy.
My second trip was with my sisters in 2021, where it was more of an eating trip. We ate a lot of lobster rolls on that trip and had a blast at the Museum of Modern Art.
I came again later in 2021, and spent most of my time in Salem and Cambridge, to visit during Halloween with my friend Lorena.
But this fourth trip was like a homecoming. I got to spend three nights in Boston and they were perfect.
Wednesday night, Casey and I drove down after work. It was dark and we made it to the fancy hotel where his work was paying for. Yes!
Thursday was an absolutely blast. With my laptop in hand, I co-worked all through Boston. I spent the morning at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, which is one of my favorite museums in the world. I can spend hours here. It’s not very large but I’m drawn to it, especially all the animals and gemstones they store here. The glass plants exhibit blows my mind every time I visit. I adore the room about New England animals and mushrooms. I think the exhibits are delightfully informative and the intimate setting makes me wish I lived next door to this treasure of a museum.
I discovered two bookstores: the Harvard bookstore with it’s packed, wonderful basement. There were so many books I wanted to buy but I knew I had to hold out for something better, given that I’d be mobile all day and have no place other than my bag to put all the books.
I’m glad I made that decision because I then stumbled upon my favorite bookstore ever. It’s called Grolier, it’s a block away from the Harvard Book Store, and sells only poetry. A bookstore with only poetry. I could die and go to heaven right now. I spent hours in the stacks and found poets from all around the world, right here in this dusty corner of Cambridge.
I picked up breakfast at Tatte nearby, a suggestion from a friend.
Next, I stopped at the Harvard Museum of Fine Art. I also had free admission with my membership. From there, I hopped on a Lyft to Newbury Street. The first time I came here, it was rainy and at night. In the day time was when it gets really fun. I was broke so I didn’t buy much, but I did discover some really cool brands including:
Mochi doughnuts from Mochi Dough. Conveniently, this one is inside a pho restaurant and they share a basement patio. Yes, think that over. Basement. Patio.
Top Drawer. The tagline to this shop is Nomad Provisions and I sort of see that. If you were a billionaire start up kind of guy doing travel, sure. That being said, I still want everything here.
Trident Booksellers. A bar inside of a bookstore! Recommended to me by an awesome friend.
A strange Brazilian clothing shop on Newbury St called Perfect Wear. Kinda weird vibes, 90’s body con clothing, nightclub highlighter-pink-and-yellow palette, but I mean like… why not?
A boot company called Freebird that I want everything from.
Reiwatakakiya. I don’t know what would compel anyone to purchase face products in a language they don’t understand the ingredients, but I low-key get it because the packaging is all very cute.
The spent the night hanging out at the hotel bar, then hopped over to the hotel… pub. The day was perfect. I couldn’t ask for more.
The second day was a lot of fun too. I woke up early, had the day off, and went to the New England Aquarium. I have pretty high standards as far as aquariums go and it was kind of small. However, being surrounded by families in strollers having a great time made me feel happy that one day I can take my children to aquariums.
I got on a Lyft to Chinatown and picked up baos at one of the many, many nameless bakeries. It was time to leave Boston and head to Long Island, but I had a remarkable time. This was my first semi-solo travel since the pandemic, and I really missed just meandering around the city with no real agenda.
I had never spent much time in New Hampshire, other than an hour stroll through Lebanon. I drove to Dover for a swim meet at the height of summer.
I really underestimated how much time it would take. It was a three and a half hour car ride and when I arrived, I was in no mood to swim. I looked at the map and realized I was almost to Boston. Oops.
The swim meet was interesting in it’s own way. It was my first adult swim competition. I was the only person of color. I was also the only person with a two-piece bathing suit. I felt like I was Lady Gaga or some celebrity on the pool deck with how much I didn’t blend in.
The events I was set to swim were difficult, too. Most swimmers are elderly and excel at freestyle. My events were the 50 and 100 back and fly, plus the IM. They were all back to back events. There were, at most, two heats per event, so I had to rush back to the other side of the pool and not get even a minute’s rest in between events. Suffice to say, that I died on my last event and did some illegal freestyle (during a 100 m butterfly) for survival.
The swim meet was nice, but I realized that the anxiety of competitions is probably not for me. I made a nice friend who we agreed to keep in touch via Facebook. And afterwards, I got to drive to Laconia to visit my best friend!
I passed by many cute and picturesque lake-side downs on the way there. Saturday mornings in New England are just so pure. It’s prime time for craft fairs and wandering around the center of town as slowly as your old people legs can take you.
Laconia is low-key in the same way many of the understated towns in Vermont is. We spent a rainy afternoon on the beach. Now that my best friend and I are both older, it’s so special to be able to visit each other’s homes. Not apartments, not rented spaces, no roommates, but a place of our own. I was pleasantly surprised that there was much of my art and gifts on the wall and shelves.
She is also an amazing cook and fried fish for us. I’ll make that 3.5 hour drive any day to get to be able to eat that fish again, ha.
The drive back was nice and I love just looking at the cute downtowns of small towns in New England. Vermont and New Hampshire have a different flavor, but only slightly.
The race of the summer is the Kingdom Swim. I had heard about this swim my very first week living in Vermont, and while I was too late to register for it in 2021 since I arrived in the summer, I registered in snowy March for the race in July 2022. I spent all year getting mentally and physically excited for it.
The race offers many distances, ranging from a one mile swim to a twenty five mile swim that takes almost a whole day to complete. I signed up for the 5K. It was held in Lake Memphremagog, a beautiful lake that both Canada and the US share. My husband and I came up two nights before, stayed at the only motel in town to prepare for the big race.
Every swimmer had to have a kayaker beside them, for safety and also for snacks. Casey was my kayaker! We had a pre-race dinner with everyone who was participating and there were swimmers and kayakers from all over New England. We even befriended a Canadian who had come down to kayak for somebody. A lot of strangers became friends, since many kayakers were volunteers for anyone who did not have one already selected.
I had even purchased a kayak the month before and practiced with Casey once in a nearby lake.
During the big race, I finished my 5K distance in 1 hour and 36 minutes. I was in the middle of the pack, which was great to know that I wasn’t last. The race organizers threw us a barbecue at the end.
One of the best memories was that Casey and I saw a bison on the drive up. We couldn’t believe it. It was such a cool animal!
We love the Northeast Kingdom and intend to come back again and again.
The summer of 2022 brought guests from all over to stay at our cozy ranch home. We finally got the guest bed set up and our tiling finished on the first floor. Our first guest came in June – the first of many.
My friend Victoria and her husband came to visit first, kicking off the summer of family, friends, and fun. Victoria and her husband were very into coffee.
If you know me at all, I can count the number of times I’ve had coffee in my life. While it is delicious, caffeine affects me a lot. I will have bad sleep for at least two nights after a single cup of coffee. So when they visited, I had to get my act together and do research on where the best cups of coffee in Burlington were.
Burlington’s coffee scene did not disappoint. My favorite coffee shop was one attached to a seltzer place (more up my alley), Brio. Their location is great since it’s attached to art galleries, local gift shops, a pickle shop, and more. I especially love the artwork at Brio.
I also loved the one in Essex, called Uncommon Coffee. It’s a roaster, in a nice large shopping plaza so you can park in front (I am an Arizonian and Texan at heart – I need to be able to drive up to my destinations). Since then, I’ve been back a lot with my laptop to schmooze their wifi. On the day Victoria, her husband, and I went to Uncommon, we got to catch a weekend arts and crafts market! It doesn’t get more quintessentially summer in Vermont than that.
Kestrel was very eh to me, but my friend’s husband loved it so much, we went around the whole town looking for fresh beans from Kestrel to buy!
I think the most unique drinks were from Onyx Tonics. They had interesting mixes like maple lattes and more.
In the same day, we also visited Vivid Coffee and Kru. Kru was the only coffee shop I had ever visited in Vermont, prior to their arrival since it’s on the heavily trafficked Church Street and I had visited with my coffee-loving sisters the summer prior.
I had mostly scones and small snacks at each place, and saved my single coffee of the day for the place I felt most worthy. I think I made a great choice because I loved Uncommon Coffee and Onyx Tonics the most. They had things on their menu that jumped out at me. It’s hard to market coffee at me, since I don’t like cold brew, or espresso, and I don’t drink milk products, which only leaves almond and oat milk lattes. I also don’t care for syrups or flavors since sugar affects many people in my family poorly.
Uncommon Coffee had a ube latte and hocjicha latter, which I still think are some of the most unique drinks around.
Strangely enough, during the pandemic I got to speak and give more presentations than ever before. Zoom made it possible for me to get involved in activism, the indie publishing scene, entrepreneurship, and more.
Prior to Covid, I had only given a few talks. I had given an art talk at an exhibit opening and a few academic conferences. But with Covid, I found myself pursuing more and more things I never had the chance to given my schedule and work commitments.
I don’t necessarily dislike public speaking, or have a great fear of it, like my husband does. When I had the opportunity to share about my small publishing business at a local organization, I jumped at the chance. It ended up being a wonderful evening where I met so many great women. A lot of women shared their stories and it was inspiring to listen to how everyone has their own passion and it’s up to us to pursue it, and support one another.
It doesn’t matter where I am, I absolutely love bookstores.
It all started when I was little. My mom would let me have my pick of anything at Border’s. As I got older, I loved going to Half Price Books in Austin. I knew that the downtown location had gems in different languages, and the one by my house always had a good sale in the CD section. I spent hours in high school at a comic bookstore a little more south than where I grew up, and felt adult buying graphic novels and hanging out with people outside of my Northwest Austin suburb.
I got acquainted with my city more after I got to know other bookstores in college. The beautiful Chicano art book store on the East side, and the weirdo basement bookstore on the drag with the conspiracy books, and the bookstore where all the cool people went on first dates downtown called Book People.
Since I’ve moved to New England, I’ve also discovered the local bookstore scene as well. The dusty ones with stacks of yellowed pages are my favorite. I’ve been to book festivals and I’ve taken part in local book fairs. I’ll always have a home in local bookstores.
This winter, I learned to ski. And not only that – I grabbed skiing by the horns. Or the poles.
I took three lessons at Bolton Valley, a mountain about 40 minutes from my house. I heard about it from just about everyone living here that was the preferred mountain for locals. I got to know the trails very well and went over ten times this winter season.
I only had to take a few small breaks, when I injured my toe and had to learn a thing or two about ski boots. They are very painful and my barefoot-leaning feet do not do well in them. I had to bring them to Alpine Shop many times to get them fixed up. Not only that, with huge calves, they cut up my circulation regardless of the temperature and conditions outside. So they are still far from perfect. I’ve had to learn a lot more about the culture of skiing than I had to learn about techniques and strategies, in my opinion.
Still. I had a great winter. Reminiscing on how wonderful it was to learn and feel comfortable on the mountain is a real treat!
Near the end of the season I got a hold of a few free passes and jumped at the chance to visit a mountain I had never been on. I really wanted to try Smuggler’s Notch. It is the mountain that’s closest to home, that many locals go. I got to go to during a weekday off season, when it wasn’t snowing anymore. However, it was still a great time.
Smuggler’s Notch was different from my “home” mountain for many reasons.
First of all, Bolton is 40 minutes South whereas Smuggler’s Notch is 40 minutes north. So the alpine and climate is a bit different. It’s more conifers, spruces, and firs up there, so it feels more winter-y, even on a sunny day. There are definitely more log-cabins along the road as you drive up.
Secondly, Smuggler’s Notch is more family friendly. There’s more of a walking area in the parking lot and lodge to hang out inside and outside. There’s more signage and there’s a lot of decorations reminiscent of a kid’s theme park in the 80’s – like elves, fairies, and random trippy animals painted on the side of lifts and walls. At any given time, there are more group lessons going on. There’s childcare for skiiers. And there’s a Magic Carpet lift. And lastly, there’s playful little nooks and playscapes for really young children to try. At Bolton, there is almost no kids stuff, like at all.
Third of all, the paths at Smuggler’s Notch are much much more wide. So as a beginner, I’m less afraid of falling off the side. Even the manmade snow was slushy, and not as icy as it is at Bolton.
After my fantastic afternoon at Smuggler’s Notch – there’s a few things I walk away with. First, that I really enjoy my time alone in the mountains. I might never have this period of uncertainty during the winter again, so I cherish being about to ski as much as I did in the time that I did. I also am considering a season pass here next year, as the trails were much more at my level. They were less steep and more wide. I’d have to try it out a few more times with Casey and see what he thinks.
For Casey and my one year marriage anniversary, it was also pretty much the one year anniversary of us deciding to move to Vermont. We decided about this time last March to move here.
To celebrate this amazing time as an end to the most wonderful year, we decided to do a few things we love best about the Green Mountain state.
First of all, we went skiing at Jay Peak. For those who don’t know, Jay Peak is the best ski mountain in Vermont. It’s powdery unlike the rest of the Ice Coast. It’s pretty far away from the rest of the state and the rest of humanity here, so it’s a trip that you have to take intentionally.
Prior to skiing at Jay, Casey and I had only skiied together one time this season. We are still getting used to each other on the slopes. On the other hand, I had been skiing a lot this winter.
Even on a Saturday morning, the slopes were packed. There were so many excited skiiers and snowboarders on the lift. We definitely felt the festive winter energy. Nothing is better than a sunny day on the mountain.
The next day, we went home and decided to book a night at the Hilton in downtown Burlington to spend our anniversary night. Since we live outside of Burlington, it’s not like we don’t get to go there about once a week. However, making a special trip out of it made it even better.
Next door to the hotel was an amazing restaurant we had heard about from all our friends – Hen of the Woods.
It was a perfect treat – grassfed meat and the most amazing vegetable dishes by candlelight. We loved everything we ordered and felt like we were on cloud nine. Even Casey loves to be pampered.
I did not expect to like this small town very much but I’m glad I was wrong. Harvard’s campus is wonderfully picturesque, but I loved their university museum most of all. I even became a member. I’ve never supported a museum before this so this is my amazing venture into being an adult with cash I can use to support *~philanthropic causes~*
Every witchy girl has a bucket list destination, and it’s Salem, Massachusetts. Myself included, I had to visit during a Halloween. For the weeks leading up to the trip, I read posts on Reddit about how much locals hate the tourists and what is a tourist-trap and more. Despite all of that, I still went to all the so-called tourist hot spots and loved every minute of it. Graveyard tours, cramming into apothecaries with everyone else in the world, buying tarot cards from psychics – I loved every minute of this gloomy trip.
I’d love to return outside of Halloween because of how quaint the colonial-era buildings are. I wish American town squares were more walkable, as they are in Europe, but New England has some beautiful remnants of pedestrian-centered city planning. Salem brings me back to that.
Before we even decided to look for a house in Vermont, we came to visit. Casey was working from home so I just took the car and drove around the entire northern portion of the state to see what’s up. I drove all the way up to Swanton, which is the northern most city before the Canadian border, then went West to North and South Hero islands, which are located on Lake Champlain, then back down to Burlington.
It was a great time to just explore and get lost. Plus, my phone didn’t have service so I was relying on a tourist map I had found in the Airbnb. The first city I encountered and really liked was St. Albans. It had suburbs and what I call “typical Vermont roads” which are houses, pretty sparsely sprinkled over fields and mountains. But the best part is definitely downtown St. Albans for it’s cute historic district.
St. Albans, also pronounced Snalbins by the locals, has a cute little square with a downtown of five or so shops and cafes. It was a cute place to drive around. The best part about many Western-most towns in Vermont is that you’re just minutes away from the water.
St. Albans Bay was beautiful and I was about to break our unspoken rule of not buying a lakehouse.
There is no St. Albans vs. Burlington rivalry, because almost every job is in Burlington and people can have commutes of up to an hour everyday. However, in this beautiful landscape, it isn’t so bad.
So if Los Angeles is the Los Angeles of California, I would say that Waterbury is the Los Angeles of Vermont. Waterbury is very fun.
On one street alone, there’s Ben and Jerry’s factory, a cidery, cheese factory, distillery, coffee roaster, brewery, state police office, and huge gun outlet. It’s basically the eating capital of Vermont, though some may argue it’s actually White River Junction, as King Arthur Flour is based there; or Cabot, since Cabot cheese comes from there; or Burlington, the most urbanized area in the state. But I stand firm in that the fun capital is Waterbury.
Just down the road from Waterbury is Stowe, one of the most famous ski resorts in all of Vermont. So it makes sense that all the food fun is within minutes of that destination.
On one of my visits to Waterbury, with my sisters, we got asked to model in an apple cider catalog. That was pretty cool. We posed for photos (with our regular clothes on) for a few minutes and got donuts and ciders to take home.
