A month or two into Vermont and I’m having a hard time finding good hikes or camping spots to share with you all. This will be different, a new basis for this website. I’m settled in New England for a while, definitely until mid-May and then back again in September. In the meantime, I’ll work on bringing you into this world here, a land very different to the one I usually write about.

Vermont is 75% woods, no wonder it’s too much for me. I’m used to New Mexico, to living in the Ortiz Mountains with view spanning twenty, thirty, even forty miles at times. I’m used to hiking up hill and across public lands. National Forests. BLM. And well, just those huge ranches that cross mountains, mesas, and arroyos, with dogs at my side. Or rather, dogs somewhere in the distance hopefully returning when hungry enough.

Yesterday I took the dogs for a walk in Montpelier. The cat was somewhere around but I didn’t see him before we headed out. Half a block away, I glanced back to see Stevie running along the sidewalk towards me and the pups, just as a car comes barreling uphill. Stevie panicked. There’s a wall on one side. The road on the other. He ran into the road. Neighbors, pedestrians, all of us freeze. He made it back to the sidewalk. Then he did it again and I jumped into the traffic with my dogs on leashes at my side, hands in the air. STOP! I yelled. Cars stopped. Stevie made it all the way across. He ran under a porch. The cars drove on. The neighbors went about their business. Stevie hid. I wanted to cry.

The road finally was empty. I walked across with the pups. Stevie followed. At the steps to our apartment, I took the leashes off and sent them up. Stevie came to me. I picked him and carried him upstairs.

It was a rough day.