Spitting Out Teeth

VACATION - DAYS 1 & 2


Today is day number two of my "in-between-jobs" vacation. Yesterday was kind of uneventful-I slept until noon, did some grocery shopping & hell-cleaned my house. Not much of a vacation day, but I knew that I wouldn't feel settled until I got the basics in order.

Today I took off for a solitary day trip to our state's capital, Montpelier. I had a good hearty breakfast of hash & eggs at Coffee Corner, and then did a bit of shopping around town. I picked up some patch cables for my new guitar pedals at Guitar Sam's, picked up (yet another) book about The Rolling Stones at Rivendell Bookstore and an armfull of records at Riverwalk Records (I got a excellent condition copy of Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks" for $1.00--score!).

I was planning on staying in town for lunch (I was torn between Positive Pie & the wings at McGillicudy's), but a couple things got me a bit miffed at Montpelier so I left. The first came when I was browsing through the vinyl selection at Buch Spieler's. Most of their vinyl selection sucks, but under the blues CDs they had a small box that I started browsing through & found mint copies of nearly every Yes album, a great turn-of-the-century blues collection and a bunch of other great records. They didn't have a price tag on them, so I brought them up to the counter to inquire about the price. The kid at the counter wasn't sure, so he got his manager--who told me the records weren't for sale. Then why but them out in the open, on the sales floor, with the rest of the merchandise that is for sale? That kind of pissed me off.

Then I returned to my car to be greeted with a nice little yellow envelope containing a parking ticket. I was carefully watching the time, and the meter literally voided out less than three minutes before I got to my car. The meter maids must have been hovering over that thing, waiting for it to expire. Friggin' parking Nazis.

I'd had enough of Montpelier at this point, so I drove to Barre to visit Exile on Main Street. I hadn't been to Barre in about a year, and I was kind of shocked at how much it had turned into a ghost town. It was certainly never a "thriving metropolis" by any means, but nearly every major store in town had moved or gone out of business. It was kind of sad. Thankfully, Exile is still around (despite a name that should have gotten them sued into bankruptcy years ago), and I was able to browse their extensive (yet overpriced) collection of LP's and CD's. Sadly, the one album I was looking for, the store's namesake, was not in stock on vinyl. So I headed back to 89 to drive home, listening to the Soft Circle album "Full Bloom" (perfect for a long, steady Vermont drive).

More vacation blogging to come.....