Category Archives: Travel

May 16, 2019

Texas Thursday

By Joe

We’ve got a lot planned for today. We are going to the Museum of the Southwest. While I’d read a lot of great things about the museum, I’ve heard quite the opposite from “actual” people I know. I’m reserving judgment. We are planning to have BBQ a for lunch and Mexican for dinner. Then for tomorrow night, we will be going to The Recovey Room, a gay bar in Odessa. It should be a fun night.

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May 13, 2019

In Texas

By Joe

I’m in Texas visiting my best friend for a week. Yesterday, I was in a plane most of the day or running from gate to gate. Not only were my planes delayed numerous times, but they also kept changing gates on me. It was a long day. I got up at 2:30 am eastern time and went to bed just after 11:00 pm central time. That makes for a really long day. 

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May 3, 2019

NYC, Saturday and Sunday

By Joe

On Friday night, Susan and I had decided not to be in a rush Saturday morning. When we got up, we’d go have brunch somewhere. So we took our time Saturday morning and then met for brunch. We ate at Moonstruck Diner. I had the French toast with eggs and bacon. Susan had the western omelet sandwich. The French toast was huge and I could barely eat half of it, but the eggs and bacon were perfection. It was a very good meal. After brunch we decided to walk around and check out the neighborhood. I enjoyed seeing Susan’s neighborhood through her eyes. Eventually, we headed back to her apartment. Honestly, I’ve never seen an actual studio apartment before and hers was interesting and beautifully done. I eventually went back to my hotel to get ready for dinner. Had I not been sick with a cold, we’d have done and seen much more, but I just wasn’t up to it. All that will come when I return in June. We have more planned then. Anyway, Saturday night, we had dinner at Pete’s Tavern. It’s one of the oldes continuously opened bars in the city. Local legend has it that O. Henry wrote his well-known story “The Gift of the Magi” in the second booth from the front. I ordered the gumbo instead of a salad to begin with. Never do this. I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t gumbo. It wasn’t half bad, it just wasn’t gumbo by any stretch of the imagination. I had the chicken piccata for my main dish. While it tasted good, it was unlike any chicken piccata I’ve ever had. When we left Pete’s we wondered around Gramercy for a while seeing the famous gated park there which is quite a lovely park. I knew Sunday would be a long day, so we didn’t do anything after that.

I woke up Sunday morning and had a Starbucks caramel latte before heading to Penn Station to catch my train. Penn Station is very confusing. Luckily, there were the guys in the red hats to help with anything you needed. One of the red hats got me to my train and I bid farewell to Susan. I settled into my chair for the next 8 or so hours. I’ve ridden trains in Europe before and it was always a gentle rocking. The Vermonter does not gently rock. It’s more like terrible turbulence in a plane. I was nauseated most of the way. Maybe if I had not had a cold, this wouldn’t have been the case, but I was so glad when we finally made it into the station at Montpelier. It was nice to be home.

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May 2, 2019

NYC, Friday

By Joe

My friend Susan, my coworker, and I met for breakfast. We had planned to try out this new cafe, but when we got there, we found out that they couldn’t serve food because the chef had not shown up yet, so we went to a Pret A Manger and had mini frittatas that were wonderful. I had the spinach and ham. Susan headed back to her apartment and would meet us later. My coworker and I headed to The Met. Our next exhibit will be a a guns and swords exhibit, so we went to the arms and armor division and did some reconnaissance. By that I mean we checked out what they had on display and how they had it displayed to get some ideas for our exhibit. Susan came to meet us for lunch but when she got there the line to get in was down the block and it was raining. Somehow, unbeknownst to us as museum professionals, it was Museum Day. Combined with it being spring break for New York, and the crowds were definitely out. My coworker decided to stay at The Met and continue to look around. She was leaving soon to go back to Vermont. I’d planned to stay until Sunday. So, I left the museum and met Susan for lunch at Le Pain Quotidien. I had a Croque Monsieur, which I have not had since I was in France many years ago. It was quite delicious. We took the subway back to my hotel, and I decided to rest for the afternoon. My cold was beginning to worsen and I needed to slow down a bit. The hotel was quite nice. The mini bar was your usual overpriced fair, but it had one thing I’d never seen before in a mini bar: an intimacy kit. It contained two condoms, lube, lover’s mints, and a feather all for $24. For that price, it better be some top notch stuff. After I got some rest, I met Susan at Coppola’s for dinner. We had a simply wonderful Italian dinner, much better than the one the night before. The creme brûlée for dessert was to die for. We then walked back to my hotel. Susan made a wonderful guide for me since this was my first time in New York. I can’t thank her enough.

More about New York tomorrow.

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May 1, 2019

Ran Out of Time

By Joe

I wanted to tell everyone about my trip to New York, but a) I’m still a bit under the weather and b) it got late and I was running out of time. I’ll try to work on it tomorrow and get it up on Thursday.

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April 26, 2019

The Big Apple

By Joe

I got to see my dearest friend Susan yesterday. We first went and did work stuff then I headed to my hotel and my coworker to hers. Susan lives near my hotel so she came over to visit. We visited for a little while then we met my coworker and another friend of ours and went to dinner. We ate at Tony’s Di Napoli on the Upper East Side. It was pretty good. I had a salad and linguine and clams with some ice cream for dessert. My coworker and friend went out drinking while Susan and I headed home. Sadly, I’ve got a wicked cough which I’m ready to be well rid of. 

Today, Susan and I will meet for breakfast, and then I’ll head to The Met to meet my coworker.

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April 17, 2019

Alabama

By Joe

After lunch yesterday, I went up to see my niece. I went to my sister’s house and we went to pick my niece up from school. She was so excited to see me. She came running as soon as she saw me.

After I left, I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things for mama. Unbeknownst to me, Tuesday is old folks day at Publix (the grocery store here). These old folks are so rude. The just either stand and stare and won’t let you get to what you need or push you out of their way to get what they want. And when something is on sale, they buy it in ridiculous quantities.

After Publix, I went to the mall. My watch quit working so I took it to JC Penney’s, which is where I bought it in Vermont. I haven’t had the watch a year. The lady there, after making me wait forever, got my watch open and changed the battery. Then she couldn’t get the back on it again. So I had to go to a jewelry repair shop on the other side of the mall to get it fixed. At least he was able to fix it even if he told me she’d put in the wrong battery. He also charged me $10 which I think JC Penney’s owes me, since it should have been free there.  


Then I went to Spencer’s (a novelty store) to check out what nipple jewelry they had. I got some new rings. I also bought a set of little daggers that go in your nipples. They are so cute. I don’t know if I’ll wear them or not, but maybe. The guy tried to sell me a pair of bars that had balls on the end. On the balls, one said lick it; the other said suck it. The guy was really cute showing me the different nipple rings they had, like the set of dinosaurs or the ones that cover your nipples. I told him I liked them to be played with not covered up. He just laughed.

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April 15, 2019

Home Sweet Home

By Joe

It was a journey, but I got home. First, at Burlington Airport, every time I go through security, the scanners show there is something in my crotch region. My guess is it’s my zipper because there is nothing metallic in my penis. So I always get patted down, completely. The guy yesterday was kind of cute, but he was awful handsy too. Normally they aren’t quite as firm as he was, but nonetheless he found nothing and I was allowed to proceed to my gate.

When I got to Charlotte, I had three hours to spare, so I had a nice breakfast at Whiskey River, a restaurant in the airport. After breakfast, I headed to my gate to begin the long wait, but I stopped by Starbucks on the way and got a latte. Then I’m sitting at my gate, and I had my cup of coffee sitting on the floor next to me and someone stole it and replaced it with an empty cup. I had not even taken a sip and it couldn’t have spilled because there is no coffee on the floor. There was just a cold empty cup next to me. I couldn’t believe someone did that. How rude! Eventually our plane boarded almost an hour late because of bad weather. Even though we boarded an hour late, we were only thirty minutes late getting into Montgomery.

Once I landed and got my bag, we went to lunch, I was starving. It was 2 pm my time (1 pm in Montgomery), and I had eaten breakfast at 8 am. Finally, we got to my parents’ house and I took a nap. Though I had napped fitfully on the plane, I’d basically been up since 2:30 am. I slept about two hours, got up and had dinner, and then settled in for some Game of Thrones before going to bed.

It’s nice to be home.

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January 23, 2019

Back to a Winter Wonderland

By Joe

We made it back just after midnight Sunday night. To say it was cold when we got back was an understatement. The flight up had been horrendous. We flew from Florida to JFK Sunday afternoon. Florida was so windy, the plane skidded sideways on the runway. Then when we got up in the air turbulence was so bad, knocking us sideways and up an down. It was this way for over an hour and a half. People were getting sick on the plane. Finally the turbulence settled down and it was a relatively smooth ride until we reached Atlantic City and circled it a dozen times because we couldn’t land at JFK yet. Then as we finally approached JFK, the turbulence began again and it was a bit of a rough landing. JFK to Burlington was relatively uneventful compared to the horror of the last flight. As you know from Monday’s post, it was late Sunday night so I stayed overnight at my coworker’s house. I finally made it home Monday morning and relaxed for the day. Yesterday, as well as today and tomorrow are work days. Friday, I am off and I’m looking forward to a long weekend.

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January 21, 2019

Home, Almost

By Joe

I made it to Burlington, but the roads were a bit treacherous, so I opted to stay at my coworkers house and go home in the morning in daylight. A lot of snow has fallen on Vermont, and to go from 70 degrees to -2 degrees is quite a shock to the system. I’m glad to be back though, and I can’t wait to sleep in my bed.

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