This post is dedicated to Matt C.

It's a good thing we went to bed early because, when you're sleeping out in nature with only a thin layer of tent wall separating you from the elements and their noises, you tend to wake earlier than usual. Matt got up at 6am, and I slept until 7:30am. There's nothing better than 11 hours of sleep in the fresh, cool, camp air.

We hit up our first hiking trail to the Falls of Lana at 8am. Matt found me a nice walking stick. We saw a caterpillar, a butterfly, and several grasshoppers and dragonflies. No moose.

We continued our hike to the North Branch trail, which took us about 4-5 hours round trip. Not 30 minutes into it, we had to cross a creek (which became the Falls of Lana?). Not wanting to fall, I carefully followed Matt's steps on each rock, though one was submerged a little under water. There was no getting around stepping on that wet rock--yep, you guessed it--my right foot slipped right off and plunged into the rushing water. Matt burst out laughing as I whined "oh nooooo!"
The creek my foot met:

Still smiling--but not about the pooch around my abdomen. I wish I could call it a baby, but it's just fat.

View of Lake Dunmore from hike:




Check out these roots!

We had lunch back at our campsite and changed into our bathing suits since our state park was right by Lake Dunmore. We decided to have a floating contest, until we realized you can't beat a floating turd. That's right: an adult-sized floater. It's a good thing we spotted it the moment we did since I was just about to dive in. Thank you God! We tattled to the state park workers, who were no less just college students working minimum wage. Either they were returded or didn't think they were paid enough to go fishing for turds, it didn't look like they were successful in solving this problem. Sure, they called for reinforcement, came out with gloves and a pail and a net (??), but they never set foot in DUNGmore Lake. We watched them looking and looking, and occasionally pointing...

When we got tired of all that crap, we headed back to our campsite to change and hit the town. It had just started raining, and changed to a monsoon minutes later.

We thought it would be nice to visit Middlebury, the next biggest town. Turns out, it was a bit more than a main street, but nice enough. Needing a hot drink to dry us off, we entered a cafe and what do you know? There was Sarah D. a college friend in the French department from Calvin. She'd become a French high school teacher in Missouri, and was completing her Masters in Vermont! What a small world!

That evening, we drove to a nearby town and had dinner at a restaurant that received praises from our tour book. I had roasted veggies (asparagus, portabello, red peppers, zucchini, etc) with VT goat cheese on grilled Maple Oat bread. YUM!! Matt had the Al Panino which had hams, salamis, and VT cheeses.

We went home to a wet tent, wet chairs, wet clothes (well, only Matt's in one corner of the tent), and wet wood. Against all odds, Matt still got a great fire going, and ended up drying out the rest of our wood! I love campfires. And smores. And Matthew.

In the middle of the night, we heard a very loud sound, like a screech or a hoot or something, with flapping. It freaked us out because it was right over our heads and sounded so close and so violent. I thought something was attacking something else, or mating? In any case, we fell back to sleep thinking it must have been an owl. What else says "HOOT"?

We were right! The next morning, we found evidence of the infamous owl: a white and tan striped feather! Thanks for the souvenir!