Burlington/Montreal Trip

My trip to Burlington with the Merrill brothers

One of my best Baltimore buddies, James moved to Burlington, Vermont about 3 years ago to pursue a career with Burton Snowboards. His birthday recently passed and invited me and his brother up to visit him. The plan was to have the best weekend ever and drink a lot of VT craft beers in the process which is exactly what we did.

I caught a flight at midnight leaving Denver. I slept on the food tray on the back of the seat in front of me, nearly the entire flight. I had a two hour layover at JFK, NY airport and got on my ride to Burlington. I was in the third aisle and once the chime rang. I jumped out of my seat quicker than anyone and was the first off the flight. The airport is super tiny and very cozy! It has nifty rocking chairs for people waiting for their flight. I walked out the airport to crisp cold air sucker punching me in the face. I loved it, and the nature surrounding it was astonishing too. Soon enough, James scooped me and we were on our way to a fantastic trip.

We immediately went to Burton Snowboards headquarters to be surprised by free passes to go zip lining  James earned for being so damn awesome at his job. I never been zip lining, this was a pretty crazy new and unexpected experience that I was about to indulge in. Before this would occur, of course we had partake in a delicious breakfast. James, took me to a place called Penny Cluse Café. This is by far the best breakfast in the entire world. Mark my words, you will never have better. I actually had breakfast there my first time visiting him in VT in 2014. I got the exact same thing I did two years ago. It was as mouth magical as I remembered. We finished our meals and made our ways to STOWE! We arrived to and were sent to get geared up. Afterwards, we were forced to try the practice run on a very small zip line. I failed miserably, by not following any of the instructions. They passed us anyway and sent us on the gondola life all the way up a 4000ft mountain. The views were amazing, the nature was multiple colors. Everything felt incredible. We got on top of the mountain. We were so high up, I had no idea we were going to be this high. I was terrified at first, but said fuck it. If I die, this would be a cool way to go. We waited in line as we saw the few in front of us zip line off this mammoth of a mountain. It was our turn to go together, the crew hooked us up and detached the hook and flew so high over so much nature. It was one of the craziest, life changing, breath taking experience I have ever experienced. I really enjoyed it, we landed to the next summit where we got on and did it again. We reached the third and final summit where James and I decided to go as fast as possible on the last one and we did! It was so thrilling, We landed at the bottom to be greeted by an old man who told us he took pictures of our experience. He said he would email them to us, I'm sure we'll be getting them soon. We made our way back down the store to return the gear and continue our awesome weekend.

Afterwards we drove on a scenic road for awhile. Did some boulder hiking, and ended our night with a few beers at Foam Brewery. It was a fantastic start! Thom arrived at 4am via Greyhound bus. I woke up to seeing my best friend/bandmate Thom. We caught up and started making our way to a breakfast spot called Sneakers. It was mega delicious place where I got a veggie wrap. We finished our meals and started walking home. A detour hiking through the woods was next on our agenda. It felt good being surrounded by nature with my compadres. There was awesome graffiti art all along the walls of bridges we walked under. We made it to some terrifying train tracks that went over a huge lake. I walked over them cautiously. Another set of tracks even more dangerous looking were to be walked over next. At this point I had to hold Thom's wrist in order to get over these. It was awkward, but that's what bandmates do right? We made our way back to the house to only sit around for a little bit till James drove us up to Mt Mansfield. We took some beers with us then hiked and drank our way to the top. We finally made it to the top of the mountain. The view was absolutely astonishing. I'm not sure if I have ever seen a view as beautiful as this. It was a brilliant moment. The sun was getting ready to set as we made our way down the mountain at a quick pace. We unfortunately missed a turned and became lost on the mountain. Darkness started creeping up fast. We finally got out of it! Only to realize the car was parked over an hour away. We started walking on the road to nowhere. A car drove near us, we hailed it down. The passengers had no interest in helping us so they kept on going. We continued our journey up the road of the mountain. It was completely dark at this point. The only light we had was the shine of the moon. We walked for about 45 minutes till another car stopped by and offered us a ride to our car. We were fortunate they did the deed because we were already in the process of devising a plan on what to do if a bear shows up.

When we got in the car with the strangers I noticed a water bottle with a Colorado flag labeled on it. I asked them about it they told us they just moved to Burlington from CO. I told them I now live in Denver. They were a great couple and took us back to our car safe and sound. We drove back to James' apartment and hung out for a little bit till Thom suggested we bike down to downtown Burlington. That's exactly what we did. We made it and got some burritos and bought cans of beer and took our drinks down to the pier to relax. It was a cool time for us to all enjoy. The next day we got up early and started buying supplies for James' birthday party. We kind of just hung out all day and did our own thing till the evening. The party was science experiment themed. We created a hypothesis that is said "What Happens When You Eat Styrofoam". We labeled our presentation with famous people and cartoons that we believe indeed ate Styrofoam. It was a hit! Everybody loved it and we all played drinking games and hung out. It was a fun night. People started departing as we planned to continue our night.

We decided as a group of us to all crash a college frat party. We all walked up streets around college neighborhoods to when we finally found a party at 2am. About 5 us all together walked in and telling everyone we knew someone. They let us all in surprisingly! We hung inside talking to random people. Till, one of the main guys came up to us and told us we had to go. Some other guys told us we could come with them. Things were getting weird! We followed some random college students down the street at 3am to there frat house. We got inside and some of there other roommates were smoking weed, drinking, listening to music. It was a strange time. We chilled with them for about 45 minutes talking about random college shit. We pretty much just lied about our lives to these kids till we finally decided to call it quits and head home. At 4am is when we finally got to the couch and passed out.

The next day it was time for the guys to head to Montreal, Que'bec, Canada! We didn't wake up till 11am when were suppose to leave for Canada at 9am. The morning started with us getting breakfast at a delicious bagel spot. Afterwards, we packed some stuff and started our journey up the road. It took us about two hours to get there. When we arrived, we started our bike trek through the city. It was magnificent! I couldn't ask for anything better then hiking with my best bros in another country. The architecture of the city had a very European style to it. Our first stop was at Café Venose, where cats live there and lounge free in the café. It was so awesome, we headed out and decided to get dinner. Thom and James went to some spot to get meat dishes, afterwards we rolled up a delightful vegetarian restaurant where I had a bowl of tofu and rice. We continued to bike around the city and check out all of the amazing murals. We even stopped by Mt Royal for a brief rest break. It was an awesome time! We made our way back home and caught the presidential debate and finished off the rest of the beers from the weekend. The next morning Thom said his goodbyes and caught a bus back down to Baltimore as for it was Monday and my last day in town. James took off work and gave me a really rad brewery tour we biked all over the coolest breweries in town, ate lunch, finally arrived back to his house to call it a night. My last day went by so fast and before I knew it. The time came for me to catch my 5am flight back to Denver. I said goodbye to great friend James for an amazing weekend and got on my flight back home. It was truly an incredible experience I'll never forget.

More COOL Photos!

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Clinton Rally Hosted by Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders!

Sunday, October 16th. I ran Rock N Roll Denver Half Marathon. I finished in an hour and fifty seven minutes. My legs were exhausted, but I was proud to have done it! I got a medal for finishing, as well as Kim did too for running the 5k the day before. We decided to celebrate by our recent discovery of a vegetarian restaurant I found out about called City O City. We met our friend Courtney and her mom for lunch there. It was almost immediately after my race that we arrived. My legs were in so much pain, but I was also starving for a delicious meal after burning off almost 200 calories. The meals were delicious and after we finished we hung around home and relaxed the rest of the evening. I got a Facebook notification from Hillary for Colorado informing me Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were at Tivoli on our college campus rallying for Clinton and Kaine. Kim and I got ready fast and rushed our way over to the campus. We arrived to be greeted by volunteers at the event to sign us up to get a free ticket inside. We ran through the doors to hear Bernie chants! We got to the main spot to see the back of Bernie leaving the area. We missed it and were confused what was going on till we realized the place we were in was a viewing party because the section where Sanders and Warren were in met capacity. We were sad we missed our chance. The live stream looked like such a fun time too. I saw a staffer for the event. I walked up to her and asked if Bernie or Elizabeth would be coming back out. She said unfortunately not. I asked if someone from the crowd needed to leave due to a bathroom break or something if we could take their spot. She wasn't sure what to tell me. She then said, you seem like a nice guy. I'll take you! She took Kim and I through a secret backway to get this exclusive area. We arrived to be greeted by a police officer that said capacity has been met. Somehow she convinced him otherwise and we got it! Warren was talking when we got there. It was so cool! We made it in and now we see Elizabeth Warren in person. She gave an excellent speech. Afterwards it was Bernie's time! People went nuts and were very enthusiastic when we came out. It was another wonderful speech. Afterwards they both came out and shook hands and took pictures with the front row only. Kim and I made our way outside to see Bernie and Elizabeth walking to separate vehicles. They both were about 5 feet away from us. Elizabeth waved to Kim and I. It was an awesome night, that all came to be from a Facebook notification I received.We also met Kristen Schaal. She was rallying for Hillary and we randomly ran into her on the main street of Boulder.

Quick shout out!

October 1, 2016 was my 10 years of being vegetarian.