Busy days

These recent days have been full!  I just came out of a Subaru appointment for a VT State Inspection, and some other things. E.g., last weekend, we found a flat tire Sunday morning when we came out to go to church. Fortunately, I have a little air pump that works off the lighter in the car, so I pumped it up and that got us to church. Came out after - flat again. Sunday at noon, what would be open? Turned out that Tire Warehouse was open, so I pumped her up again and took it to them. When they took off the wheel, a lug nut was frozen and broke the lug! They fixed the leak (a stone), and didn't charge me for the service (!), but Subaru charged $55 to replace the lug! Hmmm. Also, at Subaru just now, when I tried to go on-line using their WiFi, I was told that I was blocked by their Firewall. I asked about it but nobody seemed to know what to do. In the past, I have always been able to use wait-time there to do work on the computer using their WiFi (which we don't have at home). No more, I guess. Then I came just now to SIT where there has always been a 24/7 study room available with a great WiFi connection, and learned that from now on, the building will be closed after 5pm weekdays and all weekend. So there goes that little convenience. Nothing endures

Yesterday, Ellen and I had a little trip to Williston, VT - up near Burlington - to deliver a quilt to the Vermont Quilt Festival. This is a quilt that was designed by Eliza Bergh and worked on by a group, including Ellen, a year ago, and given to Mary Cay Brass. It's been borrowed back to submit to the Festival, and Ellen did some work on it to make it hangable. Maybe it will win a prize! It is beautiful:

This is the quilt. It is sunflowers and forget-me-nots

We delivered the quilt in a box to this garage in Williston. Lots of quilts there!

We had a nice drive up to Williston even though it rained hard the whole way. We came up the "back way" on Route 103 and Route 7, and it was ok. We stopped at the Rokeby Museum, in Ferrisburg (near Williston), which we noticed on the map. It turned out to be a fascinating place - worth much more time than we had this time (we arrived a half-hour before closing). It is a museum of VT African-American history! Mainly, it commemorates the Robinson Farm which was a very important stop on the Underground Railway in Vermont. A prize-winning display narrates the story of two slaves who were harbored there, and all the background history. The woman at the reception desk turned out to be the sister of Rafe, whom we know as a sometime member of the Guilford Church Choir, and whom we just saw dancing at the Morris Dance Ale last week. We'll try to go back there again, I'm sure.

The entrance to the Rokeby Museum

A view at the Rokeby Museum

On our way back from Williston, we checked out a Road Food stop. The highly rated Parkway Diner was closed - not open for dinner - but AL's French Frys was open. (It insists on "Frys"). The frys were good, my hot dog with sauerkraut was good. Ellen's fish sandwich not so good. 

AL's French Frys sign

AL's goes back a ways to a cart at Mallet's Bay on Lake Champlain

Last Sunday, we sang at a Hospice Memorial Garden Planting event as members of Hallowell. Hospice has developed a lovely memorial garden near Brattleboro's Living Memorial Park, where people can plant things in memory of loved ones and leave stones with messages. Names are read, people plant, and we sing. I also planted flowers in memory of both Shirley and Betsey and left little messages on stones.

Part of the Hospice Memorial Garden

We are still enjoycing our rhododendron bushes. It is been wet and cool, so the blossoms are not blasting. Here is the view out the window:

Rhododendron outside our living-room window