We've had a mostly rainy day with cool temperatures. This morning we went to St. Johnsbury, stopping first in West Danville for the mail. We saw lots of people there, among them Bert Frye who we hadn't seen for a while.

We met some folks who were interested in Bill Rossi's book, "Around the Pond." As we were talking to them, in walked Bill, so we were able to introduce them to him. We got a nice picture of him at his computer yesterday. He has a great view of the pond from his work station.

We heard on the radio this morning that St. Johnsbury Dental Associates was closed due to loss of electric power and telephone service. When we got into town, there was a lot of activity around the Maple Street area, so that must have been where the trouble was. We didn't talk to anyone to find out what the problem was, but we got some pictures of all the equipment working on Maple Street. We took other pictures along the way, too, and here's a short slide show: Slides

Tonight we went to Willy's Restaurant in East Burke for dinner. It was very nice - the food was excellent. It was very noisy, though. There weren't many people there when we first arrived, but as soon as more people began coming in it began to be a lot like our JPA pavilion is with a crown of people all talking at once. Then there was a pianist - very good, I'm sure, but his playing just added to the din. I was really glad to escape when the place began to fill up.

We took the "scenic route" home - I drove because I know the back roads better than Fred - at least, that's what he said as he handed me the keys to the car. We went up to Darling Hill and even though the sun wasn't out, it was beautiful. When we got back to Lyndonville, I took Rt. 5 to St. Johnsbury Center and then instead of getting on the throughway or continuing into St. J., I took a back road that comes out on the North Danville Road. At that point I knew exactly where we were, and with good intentions, I took the road to N. Danville. Somehow I took a wrong turn and had to pick my way on numerous back roads only to find the bridge was out on Badger Memorial Highway (the road from No. Danville to Danville) so we had to back-track to get onto Rt. 2 just west of St. Johnsbury.

We came upon this farm tractor and car blocking the road. Neighbors, probably, and they no doubt wondered who the strangers were on their road. These were the last people we saw for several miles as we rambled along wooded roads with darkness fast approaching and me depending on guesswork and dumb luck to get us back to some place we recognized. I think it may be the last time Fred lets me drive home from anywhere unless I promise to keep to the known highways. Bill and Diane are good sports, though, and we managed to get home only a little past 9 o'clock, Bill's bed time.

We couldn't take many pictures while we were on the back roads of North Danville because it was getting too dark, but we took some at the restaurant and on Darling Hill before I got us lost . . . Slides

Tomorrow it's back to work for me. I goofed off most of today, so have some catching up to do.