End Of Summer Road Trip: Burlington VT. Montreal, CA.

(In this blog. I make my goal come a little bit closer by stepping foot into 2 new states I have never been to which were New Hampshire, and Vermont. This now has brought me up to 34 states in America. My goal is to step foot in all 50 states by the age of 30. I am currently 24)

I took a huge last minute road trip recently from Baltimore to Burlington, Vermont. This trip would have my girlfriend and I visit many other places during this trip including Montreal, Que'bec, Canada. The meaning of this trip was to visit and stay with a friends who just moved up to VT.

We stopped in so many states on our way up such as PA, DE, NJ, NY, we stayed in Bridgeport, CT for the night with one Kim's Peace Corp friends. We passed the WWE head quarters on our way up which unleashed the nerd inside of me! We continued and made it to her friends house K. She literally just moved into her new house that day. It was huge with nothing in it except her amazing golden 3 year lab A'rue. He was born in Guatemala. He was a very playful and fun dog. We hung out drank unfiltered beer, K and I smoked. We got pretty stoned. It definitely turned into a wild night full of ridiculous laughter.

The next morning we all had breakfast together and then Kim and I departed from K to continue up to Vermont. 

We continued our journey up north passed through Springfield, MA, stopped in New Hampshire for a brief rest and for delicious moon pies. We then finally made it to Vermont. 

Brattleboro, Vermont.

This is the name of the super incredible down I HIGHLY suggest you look it up right now. This very second, take a minute and Google imagine this town.

Okay....you're back I assume/hope.

Brattleboro is a twin of the town of Asheville, NC.  

It's really, really cool. It has a big eco-friendly, hippy, hipster vibe to it. They have many local record stores, thrift shops, boutiques, bars, and restaurants. It was nice. We walked around the town for awhile, checked out the stores, bought some random stuff. and got back in that car and continued driving.

During our drive we saw so many mountains, we watched the sunset. It was the best. We finally made it to my friends house James and Cait, in Burlington, VT.

We greeted, relaxed, and then went out and they showed us around down town Burlington. It was super. It had a Canton Water Front, 10x bigger Fells Point look to it. We hung out on the pier for a bit. We got pizza, we got local brewed craft beer that was delicious. We then went to another bar and got 

the

HEADY TOPPER!

Voted best beer in America, definitely one of the strongest beers too. It got us super wasted, we walked around the town a little more and called it a night.

The next day was a big one! We went everywhere. We first got the most delicious breakfast I have ever had in my entire life. I got eggs, pancakes, hash browns, VT maple syrup, and on my plate it came with a blood orange. It was so damn good. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of the place but FUCK it was amazing!

Anyway... I ate everything on my plate, and it was a lot! We then went to what brought James M. up to Vermont in the first place. His new job at Burton Snowboards. He gave us the tour of Burton and gave us some great discounts on gear there. We then left and decided to go hiking up a mountain till we reached Devil's Chair. It was sick, the views were amazing. I was really impressed by the atmosphere and environment there. We then started going to different breweries around the city. There is over 10 breweries in Burlington alone. We continued to get "Flights" which is like 6 shots of different beers in which that brewery makes. We got really good cheese to snack on as well.

We then hung out on the beach for the rest of the day and watched the sun go down, we played frisbee in the water, layer in the sand, and listened to music.

The night arrived so we left got some dinner, and then ate at Ben and Jerry's which was founded in Burlington, VT. It was tight. We called it a night.

The next morning we woke up super early and we all headed to

MONTREAL, QUE'BEC, CANADA!!

We all took our passports and headed up the road for a 45 minute drive to the Canadian board, August 31st. It was amazing to be back in such an incredible country. We made it to Que'bec and of course everything was in French as none of us know French so we down load Duolingo but it doesn't do us much good.

We arrived to Montreal and our first stop was in a casino for a bathroom break and to pull out some Canadian money. We started driving again, we passed

                             Habitat 66'

It was super cool seeing that in person, and to take a few pictures of it. We hiked MT ROYAL for a little bit and made it to the cross all the way at the top and got a great city view. We hung out in some hipster part of town with a lot of great art and murals that were pleasant to see. We got lunch/dinner. We went to 2nd cup for frozen hot chocolate, and enjoyed the down."

We had to head back early so we left got back home, ate some Asian food, watched Trailer Park Boys and went to bed early as for Kim and I had a long journey back to Baltimore. We drove forever and finally made it back it was an incredible trip with a lot of fun new experiences.

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Side Stories:

We took a trip to go camping, hiking, and exploring we saw some cool stuff in Old Rag, VA but mainly Shenandoah and it looked like dis!



I went and saw Lone, an electronic musician at DC's own U Street Music Hall. The visual he put out while listening to his set was super dope.

Here is one of my own person favorite tunes from this gent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGgmDTANdfw

I went and saw Fitz and The Tantrums briefly at Power Plant for a Ravens Kick off festival thing. It was pretty decent for alternative poppy music.

I also went and saw Com Truise for FREE at Ottobar, Sept 16th during Two for Tuesdays, and during the Orioles win clinching them the AL East Division. Commy put on a great show and visual for the show was stellar. I've had a great September.
Another thing I did recently was see Hall and Oates at Pier Six, for free with my best friend since 2007 Mike Wolf.

I hung out with my best friends Mike and Thom, and Kim later arrived to see Future Islands at Hampden Fest for free!

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