Well, we’re back in Vermont, Burlington to be exact. As it happens, the city has a municipal campground, and that’s where we are now. It’s kind of a party camp, and many of the neighbors are juvenile and noisy (and, apparently, lesbian–I just heard “she was so hot until she started doing guys and heroin, I completely would have done her before that”), but considering it’s the Memorial Day weekend and we didn’t have reservations, I’m happy we found this reasonably good place to camp.

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Today was a fairly low-test day, all things considered. We checked out of the Hyatt at noon and headed over to the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, which I’d like to call the Montreal Contemporary Art Museum, except no one actually calls it that. We didn’t find it too interesting, but neither of us are the biggest modern art fans, so don’t take that to mean much. (That said, the Brian Junge plastic-chair whales were pretty amazing.) After a quick fast food lunch in the food court under our hotel–Quebec has plenty of chains, but most seem unique to the province–we headed out and back to the US. We almost didn’t get lost this time, but at least in this case the route to fix me missing an exit was pretty easy.

We drove down to Burlington across the Champlain Islands, a beautiful drive briefly interrupted by two friendly seniors standing in the middle of the road looking for donations to the local fire department. (They were protected by huge orange road-constructionish signs proclaiming “Coin Drop Ahead.”) Just over an hour later we witnessed a rather extreme case of road rage right before entering the city, but decided to ignore it and pretend that Vermont is as quaint as it generally seems.

After setting up camp, we drove into downtown to check out the city. As it happens, there are two Burlingtons. One is scenic, touristy, and generally enjoyable, and the other is run down and somewhat frightening. (And by frightening, I mean 300-pound-women-wearing-sports-bras frightening, which I regret to say we encountered more than once.) As with the earlier case of road rage, we decided to ignore what we saw and focus on the good.

We spent much of the evening on Church Street, and ended up eating at a cool little restaurant called Smokejacks. I had Alaskan salmon, which was paired with the most delicious asparagus I’ve ever tasted. (The salmon was good, too.) Regrettably, I can’t say the dinner was all good, as Lisa’s meal of seared tuna was chewy and in some cases borderline indelible. Kind of surprising for a restaurant that has gotten a fair amount of good press, but I guess that stuff happens.

From review, I really should’ve tried their burgers. Damn.

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Well, it’s getting late, and I’m expecting this place to get very noisy very early tomorrow, so I should turn in. The next entry will likely be from New Hampshire, and after that, who knows.