And the Hunter, Home From the...Red Barn?

Yes, it's true:

• 155 bicycling miles
• 3 1/2 bicycling days
• 1 hiking day
• 3 dreadfully expensive country inns
• 8 Harpoon IPAs
• 2 Creme Brulees
• at least a gallon of maple syrup, amber/fancy variety
• 500 scenic red barns
• 3 covered bridges
• 1 raving asshole woman
• 1 apricot scone, with Creme Fraiche
• 5 sets of stinking bike clothes
• 2 appetizers I couldn't pronounce
• 2 Backroads water bottles
• 16 fellow travelers
• 2 all-suffering guides names Anna and Heather
• 1 really chintzy maple syrup museum featuring noble Native Americans, dugouts, big iron pots, trees and some other stuff that blew right past me
• 1 hot fudge sundae
• 1 brazed tuna with wasabi
• 2 authentic Vermont flannel shirts, gauranteed made by Native Vermont women chewing the hide of a flannel, or something like that
• 1 snake in the road
• 1 Abe Lincoln top hat
and
• 6 gnomes later...

...my Sweetie and I have survived our vacation — a Backroads bicycling tour of Vermont — and are back in harness! The pix is me with a gnome, who kept trying to give me stock picks. I told him to shut up with the insider information of it was back to the Mines of Moria for him. As usual, my Sweetie biked me into the ground.

I had a wonderful time!

Anything happen while I was gone? Did I get any instant messages from Republican Congressmen looking for hot chat with a 16-year-old hottie? Has North Korea destroyed the world? Is Kenny still dead? Is it true that Sienna Miller said Pittsburg sucks, which is pretty much self-evident, then had to apologize? Damn, there's a lot to be said for being out of touch!