Leaving home is like a dream. There has been months of preparation and anticipation for the vacation and when the morning finally comes and it’s time to leave we’re literally vibrating with excitement. We kept wondering if we had forgotten anything…but as long as we have our passports and credit cards we should be fine!!
The Holiday Inn in Burlington Vermont was our first hotel as we travelled from Quebec to the Hawaiian Islands. We chose the Holiday Inn because they had a Park and Fly…there might be a Comfort Inn Park and Fly as well but we liked the location of the Holiday Inn right off the highway. It was an easy drive from Knowlton.
Day one of the holiday started after not enough sleep visiting with long lost half brother and family for the last two nights in a beery almost heady smokey-gray fog of anticipation of Hawaii and disillusion in the winter and time, the thief of moments… and as I stepped into the front yard with the Salsa Vibe packed and ready for our holiday to Hawaii and ready to take this moment and run into the distance where snow piled in white nylon drifts against the fence.
It was sad to leave our black cat Pauline this morning and we both woke up slightly under the fighting fog of a warm rainy grey morning and little Pauline, if a 16 year old cat can be considered little, was meow meowing all morning not making the state of my membrane any better.
We left around 10 in the morning after a sweet Continental Breakfast or as close as to it that we could muster with the bare fridge and slim toastries available for our morning crunch. As we drove south to Burlington the fog was rolling over the green hills as the snow has melted away in warm weather which had been above 10 degrees Celsius for the last few days.
Finally…even though it’s January…we get some warm winds like a Chinook over the Rockies as we prepared for our holiday on the Hawaiian Islands. We drove into the sunshines of beautiful Vermont and had to stop for Tums for the Tummy because DD had stomach acid from the freshly squeezed OJ we drank at home…we had a bag of fresh oranges in the fridge and before we left we squeezed em’ all!
Got to the Hotel in Burlington and checked into room 220…now normally checking in to room 220 wouldn’t mean much but that hotel room had the same number as our street address in Knowlton, Quebec, Canada so we took that as a sign that this was meant to be…it was like The Secret…it was all happening for a reason!
Hmmm..after 5 minutes being in the room we realized that maybe there was no sign…no meaning…except that we were in a dump of a hotel! The noise and the smell created a cocktail of nausea as we rode the elevator up to the 2nd floor…if there had been more than five floors I swear I would have thrown myself out to the street below!
The room, the infamous room 220, is right beside the ice machine and it was just vibrating from that old Detroit Diesel freon contraption and the room is loud but now not so bad as right now DD and I are watching the weather channel and getting ready for a 7:30 supper which is destined to be some microwave tv dinners or something similar to a Hungry Man Meal but since we’ve been working out at the Gym it will likely be a low carb Panini!!
We went to the mall, whatever that mall in Burlington is called, and shopped for our suitcases. We had no suitcases and looked around in Granby and Montreal and online a bit but decided it would be easier to buy all our suitcases right in Burlington before we took the flight to Newark.
DD got some undies and I got some sneakers on special for only $11! I love doing this cross border shopping! We had a lovely romantic pre-holiday picnic and we had both had a Subway snack in the mall and you notice a lot of soldiers and military folks here…well not a lot…but more than back home in Knowlton.
After we spent more than an hour at JC Penny going through their luggage and opening and closing so many pieces and brans as if we had a Russian Doll complex we finally chose a Cobalt blue large suitcae for me and a smaller set for DD! As we went to pay there was a wonderful Indian teller at the JC Penny checkout who got us to sign up for a card to save 10% and then we went to the store for some microwave popcorn and those famous boil in the box dinners and now, as I sit on the bed at the Park n’ Fry Holiday Inn waiting for the snacks to finish cooking and thingking about Johnny mentioning the Popcorn lungd, DD is having a shower and we’ll likely eat the boxed Space Food and then just take it easy and likely go to bed early.
I’d like to go down to the pool and take some test underwater shots with the camera but may not but maybe tomorrow. I bought a high end underwater lens for my Canon G7 to take underwater photos in Hawaii and was thinking of jumping into the pool to test it…but whew…we are so tired!
Anyway, I checked my emails on the new laptop as we drifted off into a carbohydrate-high due to our microwave din-dins and we’ll likely watch another episode of Hawaii 5-0, since before we left Canada we bought and watch a lot of, the full DVD series of Hawaii Five-O! Tonight, in the stinky noisy Holiday Inn, as we eat our frozen microwaveable dinners and then finish off with some peach pie! Now as we sit on the bed of the Holiday Inn in Burlington with the thick crepe draperies closed and billowing slightly over the grinding and noisy air-conditioner… it’s nine o clock and after watching the Hawaiian Plague visit McGarrett I may need to have at least a small piece of that Peach Pie!
We have to wake up early to catch the plane at 10 am to Newark and then on to Honolulu! There is nothing better than the first day of a holiday…the excitement is incredible!
DAMI