Monday, July 09, 2007

Up north


More travels. Got a last minute fare on Saturday (talk about last minute!) and I'm up in Plattsburgh, NY visiting the eldest cousin on my mom's side. He just started dialysis, and I've been meaning to come up visit this summer (before the ball and chain are re-attached at seminary :)). [Our instructor is at a conference, so I don't have classes till Thursday]

The day started at about 2:45 am, when the alarm went off. Drove up to Charlotte to catch a NW flight to Detroit and then to Burlington, VT. It's eerie driving on I-77 at that hour -- nothing but convoys of trucks. Yep, I got a first class upgrade -- NW's first class breakfast is nothing compared to what I've gotten on CO. Oh well. A neat approach to Burlington (across Lake Champlain from Plattsburgh) through dark rain clouds. A very tight base and final leg, I thought -- he was adjusting alignment to the runway center line (Rwy 15. Yep, you needed to know that) almost till we crossed the threshold. Then the lightning started and the rain pelted down.

Lunch at a Thai place in downtown Burlington, then across the Lake on ferry to the fair city of Plattsburgh (the site of the battle of Plattsburgh from the war of 1812).

Tomorrow we're going to visit the neighbor to the north and I hope to attend a performance of Goundod's Requiem at the Baslique du Notre Dame in Montreal tomorrow evening. Yes, I have my passport. [Note though, the new passport requirements for US citizens are only for air travel to and from the US. At land crossings to and from Canada a passport isn't yet required.]

Heading back down South on Wednesday.

[That's a rather poor cell-phone shot of Lake Champlain, from the Grand Island causeway in Vermont.]

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