Supporting the Team

I took my first trip out of the state of 2016 on Super Bowl weekend.  I had been to 44 states.  Surprisingly, one of the states I hadn't been to borders New York.  I finally got to Maine last summer, so this trip to Vermont finished off New England.  Now the closest state that I haven't been to is South Carolina.

John had mentioned this weekend to me as a possibility back in the summer.  It was John, Sean, and Sean's wife Anne doing a Penguin Plunge in Lake Champlain.  I was glad to use this as my excuse to cross off Vermont.  They were raising money for the Special Olympics.  I definitely was not interested in participating, but much like David Puddy, I was willing to support the team.

Burlington is the biggest city in Vermont.  It's the smallest city to be the biggest in a state.  Its population is about the same as Hicksville, New York, where I work.  It's less densely populated than Hicksville because it's geographically bigger.  I flew up to Burlington on Friday night.  I figured a $137 round trip was worth it.  John drove up early Saturday morning.  We got breakfast at the Skinny Pancake and met Sean and Anne there.  I had the Crepedilla, which was quite good.

The view of Lake Champlain from my room.  Just kidding, my view was a parking garage.  This was from Sean and Anne's room.

We headed down to the lake around noon.  The weather was about as warm as you could reasonably hope for in Vermont in February.  John and Sean said that usually there's snow on the ground and the lake is frozen.  Not this time.  The high was 37 degrees.  They got pretty lucky because eight days later the high was 3.  I did notice that it felt much colder down by the water because the wind was blowing a lot more down there.  John was in and out as quickly as he could be.  He was the first one out of the water from his group.  Sean and Anne lingered in there for a little longer.  After the plunge, we met up with John's friend Rebecca (former Camp Alvernia employee) and her husband.

If not for those two people bundled up in the background, you might think it was warm.

After going back to the hotel and warming up for a bit, we went to a late lunch at a pizza place.  But apparently you weren't allowed to call the food pizza.  They were flatbreads (but if you had leftovers, they gave you a pizza box to pack them up in).  It's well known that I'm a pizza snob, but this wasn't bad.  John and I split a breakfast pizza (they were still serving brunch).  I cut out quickly to make it to the 4:00 vigil mass at St. Joseph's.

Pizza that we weren't allowed to call pizza.

After mass, I headed back to the hotel. John and Sean were watching some movie.  I wasn't really paying attention.  After the movie, we were planning on going to dinner, but not for a little while.  So I went back to my room and watched some of the Notre Dame-North Carolina game.  We left for dinner in the second half so I didn't see the end of the game.  I think we had tied it right around when we headed out.  I had to follow the end of our victory on my phone.  We got dinner at a Chinese place for Chinese New Year.  Then we went out and did some drinking.  I enjoyed various Vermont beers.  And at one point we met a Burlington TV personality who was friends with Anne (I don't remember her name).

I think this was a Grodziskie (a Polish Oak-Smoked Wheat Ale), which John ordered for me in honor of St. John Paul II.

So that was my 45th state.  It was a good time up in Vermont with everybody.  Number 46 will probably be South Carolina or Louisiana.  If it's Louisiana, Mississippi will by number 47 (that will be the same trip).  Alaska is most likely to be number 50.