Wretched heat and humidity finally abate

Five (5) weeks of hikes not worth mentioning, through clouds of bugs in sweltering heat and horrid humidity, gave me the resolve I needed to form a new Rule For Hiking Happiness:

Never hike south of the Berkshires.

Ever.

The trauma of the past weeks of heat and humidity also caused me to abandon one of my Rules For Creating Illusions Of Attractiveness: never wear shorts while hiking. Why did I ever care if my old knees showed or not? From what ridiculously self-centered, vain, delusional, self-concept was I suffering? Whatever... it's over now. Thank gods.

So Sunday was a beautiful day.

The kind of day that makes you feel like taking some pics.

(1) Wrong turn in Montpelier so I "oops-ed" past the lovely gold-domed capitol building.

(2) Got to feel like Awesome Scrambler on the rocks. Probably the rope was not necessary here but it enhanced my feelings of uber-ness, false though they were.

(3) Another pic of rope and rock becuase it was that much fun.

(4) Say hello to Camel's Hump, please. Bee tee dubs, I messed up in a previous post -- Camel's Hump is the third highest spot in VT, not the second. Killington is second and I have been up that one 3 x's, so I am not going to be interested in it anytime soon.

(5) Faires live in this col between the 2 mountains I hiked. They maintained a rule a Utter Silence and commanded that a cool wind blow in from nowhere to shoo the bugs away.

The End

Sometimes I Get Fun Messages On Monday Mornings

'Cause Verne still works a couple hours on Saturday afternoons.

Sad Things

Today is HG's Last Day.

Really.

I am not making it up.

He is retiring.

He is over 70 so I guess it is time and all.

Click here to remember HG.

Sigh.
He told me he worked 65 hours a week for the first 35 years.

Then he dropped down to 46 for the last 9.
He said back in the day they used to sweep the floors EVERY DAY,
first thing in the morning
WITH A BROOM -- the ENTIRE STORE!!
I just can't imagine the store without HG.
I went down special this afternoon to heckle him for the last time.
OMG I am going to miss him!!! (there... 6... tada!)

I told HG to look happy and wanted to retake the photo but he said that this was close enough. I told Verne to look sad. I think he did a good job.