Old New Friends

A few weeks ago we drove up to Proctor, VT to visit old new friends. Or perhaps they are new old friends. They're new in the sense that we'd only met them twice before, but old in the sense that the first time was over six years ago and the second two years ago. And yet we've managed to keep in touch.

They've bought a second house in Proctor, which is just north of Rutland (i.e. near Killington, Pico, and some other ski areas), and had invited us up to visit. Since we love going to Vermont, we jumped at the chance (although it took us two years to find a good weekend).

Proctor is a cute little town, and houses the Vermont Marble Museum, which we will have to visit next time. Most of the municipal buildings are made of marble, as is a bridge going into town. There are even sidewalks made of marble! Proctor also has a beautiful, recently renovated covered bridge, which I unfortunately did not get a picture of although here is one taken before the renovation. This small town has its own high school (The Phantoms), and has won a surprising number of state championships in baseball and basketball, considering its graduating class is far less than 100 students.

We had a great time swimming at the Proctor Pool, which is technically a pond, but does have a slide, raft, and multiple diving boards. Lee jumped off a diving board for the first time (wearing a life vest).

Saturday night we walked over to Proctor's single restaurant/bar for dinner, and saw that the walls were dedicated to the achievements of The Phantoms. The bar had a great local atmosphere, tasty food, and especially tasty local beers.

On Sunday our plans to do a little hike were rained out, but there were some great puddles to play in on the deck.


But the highlight of the trip was definitely the dogs, Moosie and Nokki. There was a bit of trepidation on Lee's part at first (Lee does have a history of fearing dogs), but she did pretty well. Clara was just thrilled. The dogs were great with the kids. Both dogs just love people, Moosie full of bounces and kisses, and Nokkie more on the mellow side. On the way home, when I asked Lee why she hadn't played with dress-up clothes at all, she said "Mommy, I just wanted to play with the dogs."


On the way home we talked about how we might be able to work out living in Vermont (we've had this conversation many times before).