Vermont's Fifth Season
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| March 21: the intersection at the end of our street |
For the rest of you, March 21 was the first full day of Spring; for us here in Vermont, it was the height of Mud Season - and this year's season was an epic one, even according to those who have lived here for decades. The war and pandemic took a temporary back seat in conversations around town, and instead all the talk was about which roads were impassable and how well the tow-truck businesses were doing. Some roads had to be closed completely and school buses rerouted to avoid the worst spots.
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| Edge of the abyss: those cars in the background are parked on pavement; their owners chose to leave them there and walk the extra mucky distance home |
We live a quarter mile up a hill on one of those gravel roads, and while most of our street has remained passable, the only way out of the neighborhood is through the four-way intersection that you see in the pictures above. Needless to say, we limited our trips back and forth to town.
Mud season and the preponderance of gravel roads in the state were the featured topics on a recent Vermont Public Radio broadcast. This link provides a transcript of that show as well as some more pictures: CLICK HERE.
As I write this, the roads are clearing up and it looks like we're going to make it to the actual Spring season. We like to think of the "season of mud" as the price we pay for living in paradise the other four seasons of the year.
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| Celebrating the Fifth Season with a cake (source and baker unknown) |
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Big Doings in Our Little Town
Randolph, Vermont isn't quite the picturesque touristy town like Woodstock or Stowe - not necessarily a bad thing - but the town has been making the news lately, even on the national level.
Dining:
You might not think of Randolph when looking for a fine dining experience, but that's changing: back in February, Nisachon "Rung" Morgan,the chef at our local Thai restaurant SAAP, was nominated for the James Beard award in the category of "Best Chef". She is one of just five finalists in the Best Chef category for the New England region; the other four being from restaurants in the big cities of Boston and Portland.
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| SAAP |
The restaurant is located in a wing of the Kimball House, a Victorian home built in 1887 by Randolph financier and benefactor Colonel Robert Kimball.
Nisachon, a native of Thailand, and her husband Steve, pretty much run the place by themselves these days, as the pandemic forced them to discontinue in-house dining and reduce their staff. During that difficult shut-down period, John and I made a habit of ordering take-out from SAAP and other restaurants in town on Saturday nights as a way to support local businesses.
SAAP has since reopened for dining, and the traffic has grown now that the place has attracted regional attention and out-of-town diners. Due to the continued staff level shortages, however, Nisachon and Steve are finding themselves with the first class problem of having more business than they can handle, often resorting to taking their phone off the hook.
Our experience in attempting to order take-out or even to dine-in at SAAP in the last few weeks has taught us that it may be a while before we can enjoy their food again, but we're very happy for Nisachon and Steve and wish them luck in the further James Beard competition in Chicago this June. For the full story as it appeared on our local news, CLICK HERE.
Mountain Biking:
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| That's our neighbor Zac. Photo credit: VTSports.com |
In other local news, the town of Randolph is the recipient of a part of a $140,000 national grant to plan and build the "Velomont Trail", a mountain bike trail that will eventually connect the already existing trails in the state into one 485 mile bike trail stretching from the Massachusetts border up to Quebec. For more on the story, CLICK HERE.
HAPPY TRAILS UNTIL NEXT MONTH!
