Catching Up, Rest and Exploring Warren, Vermont

One of the truest rewards of having kept this blog up for so long is the people we’ve been blessed to meet over the years.

Last May when we were in Montreal towards the end of our Canadian cruise adventure – Sue & Doug of The Destinators, drove up from Vermont to spend a day hanging out.

We had a blast touring the town by rental bicycles, dining and getting to know each other.

They were just getting ready to set off on their first long RV adventure for the summer, but extended an invitation to use their spot in Warren as a basecamp in their absence.

They tempted us in by using words like ‘secluded’, ‘private’, ‘scenic’ and ‘no one will bug you’.

Music to our ears!

We corresponded back and forth enough to really know they sincerely meant it, so we graciously accepted their invitation as our retreat after Escapade.

Warren is in an area known as the Mad River Valley in the Green Mountains, and the location of the Sugarbush Ski Resort.

Doug works as a ski instructor during the winter (in case you’re wondering why they’re seemingly doing the whole ‘follow the weather’ thing differently.)

During the summer, the town turns into a bit more of a funky local’s playground with most the tourists gone.

We arrived to their place, carefully documented with multiple locations marked where we might fit – and selected a little corner of the yard. We settled in with a big sigh of relief with intentions of spending a week (after all, there’s a lot of New England to explore!).

We did our best to cram in as much as we could.

Benefits of a Shipping Address

Shipping addresses while in motion can be difficult to juggle and plan around. And while we use General Delivery and have things sent to campgrounds usually without problem, there are some things that are just better with a residential address you’re going to be at for a bit.

So we used the opportunity to have a lot of stuff scheduled to meet up with us.

Mattress Swapping

One of those is swapping out our mattress… again.

If you’ve been following along this past year, we’ve been trying out different mattresses. We ditched the Denver Mattresses given to us for evaluation at the end of the year and decided to try the internet-ordering mattress companies that have popped up.

Most offer a 100-day no questions asked in home trials. Considering they’ll deliver to where we are parked and arrange pick-up for wherever we’re currently at, it’s been working out better than dealing with traditional mattress stores.

And all of the options we’ve tried so far are in the affordable sub-$1000 range. Here’s what we’ve tried so far:

• Try 1: Leesa – In January, we had a Leesa delivered after reading and viewing lots of reviews. We initially really liked it, but it turned out to be too firm for our tastes. It’s apparently much more suited for smaller framed folks than us. Still, high quality and great customer service, we’d give them a thumbs up anyway.
• Try 2: Purple – In May, we swapped out for a Purple. We honestly just couldn’t like it. As best we can describe it, the ‘purple grid’ on top is just way too noticeable. While the mattress did seem to reduce pressure points, we woke up most mornings feeling like we were peeling ourselves off a waffle iron. We were anxious to get this swapped out before the 100-days were up.

• 

  Try 3: Helix – Helix has you enter in your body dimensions, sleep preferences and any sleeping issues you have – and then they custom make you a mattress with different densities of foam, micro-coils and latex (either a best-blend between two partners, or with two different sides).

The swap worked out perfectly – the mattress retrieval company picked up the Purple in the morning, our refund was immediately processed and our Helix arrived by UPS later in the day.

And I have to say.. we’ve been sleeping on it for just over 3 weeks now, and so far.. a third time might just be a charm.  (*crossing fingers*)

If this one doesn’t work out, I think next we’re just going back to a crummy cheap mattress with a great memory foam topper (which is what we had before).

Packages Galore!

We also had a bunch of boxes arrive to meet up with us, including new mobile internet gear to work into our testing lab.

 

But some of the boxes were birthday surprises! It’s always nice to have a known shipping address on your birthday so loved ones can surprise you.

Exploring, Exploring!

Sue had sent us a list of things to check out in the area. There was no way we were getting to it all unless we moved in for the rest of the summer (temping!).

The area around is just beautiful, and we loved just driving around. We spent a couple days ‘driving the gaps’ – which were totally made for motoring in our MINI (but not for a bus!).

Was’SUP?

For my birthday itself, I wanted to do something fun. We picked up a guide to the Mad River area in town, and considered a few options. When we discovered there was an ‘Art of Stand Up Paddle Boarding’ class on nearby Blueberry Lake on my actual birthday – we knew it was the perfect choice!

It’s a sport we both had been wanting to try, but weren’t sure were to start. It seemed a bit intimidating watching others doing it, requiring crazy core muscles and balance.

Our instructor Barry from Clearwater Sports  (photo credit goes to him!) was amazing in getting us right up and comfortable.

And we both took to it pretty quickly. Turns out, the boards are incredibly stable and while you do get an all over body workout, it’s also very relaxing.

We liked it so much, we signed up for a SUP Yoga Class a few days  later and arranged to try out a pair of inflatable boards. Doing yoga on a floating mat was pretty darn peaceful.

I think we’re both hooked, and now the research starts to find our ideal inflatable SUPs to carry with us.

Hopefully something with a bit of hybrid functionality – as they would be replacing our SeaEagle inflatable kayak (who does also make a SUP we’re considering).

Summer Ski Lodge Fun

We also took an afternoon to check out what a ski lodge does in a summer. Sugar Bush has done a great job of offering summer activities – adding bike racks to the ski lift, and turning some of their ski runs into mountain bike trails.

We bought a lift ticket for the day, and enjoyed riding up and down the mountain.

Don’t worry, we’re not crazy enough to even attempt taking our electric folding bikes down this mountain! Or heck, any bike down any mountain.

But we did bring along our disc golf set and played through the lift area course. Kinda fun to be aiming for baskets underneath lift chairs.

We did end up spending quite a bit of time hanging around the lodge – as it was an easy bike ride, and the location of one of the only Pokestops and gyms in the area.

We had to get our fix somewhere, after all.

Work, Work, Work

As much as we would love to have an all-play stop – we were seriously back-logged on work. Most of our time was actually spent working very long days. Probably too long.

We ended up creating a ton of new content for RV Mobile Internet Resource Center, including several video tutorials.

We also spent some extensive time testing cellular signal enhancing, WiFi extending and mobile routers.

It seems no matter how much content we create, we still keep coming up with ideas for new stuff we can do to better help our members. We’re out own worst bosses, really.

Mad River Wrap Up

A huge huge thank you again to Sue & Doug for the incredible gift of having a basecamp in such a beautiful location. It was exactly what we needed!   And a special thanks to their house-sitter for being so warm and welcoming!

After a couple of days, we know a week wouldn’t be enough to explore, rest and catch up. As if reading our minds, Sue wrote making it clear we were welcome to stay longer.

After two weeks, we decided we really should continue on.

We of course had bigger intentions to venture further away – such as back-tracking to Ben & Jerry’s (we never got there, but we did our darndest to ‘eat local’ anyway).

Given our post-rally exhaustion levels and workload, we’re pretty darn pleased with the amount of adventuring we did manage. And it was super cool to have an opportunity to get in tune with a place, and actually repeat visit favorite restaurants.

We definitely recommend checking out the Mad River Valley area, it’s gorgeous and our kind of place.  The area kinda brought back memories of living in the Virgin Islands a few years back (minus the snow in winter) – remote, funky local stuff and very in touch with nature.

Unfortunately, we don’t have recommendations to make for nearby RV Parks, but it’s an easy day trip from many places around.

What’s Up Next?

As usual, I’m running behind on the blog (for good reason, we’re up too much fun stuff!) – and we’re now three stops ahead of this post. We’ve been exploring New Hampshire, and likely by the time you’re reading this post we’ll be on our way to start exploring Maine for a couple weeks before we turn south.

We’re both super excited for continued new territory and also sad to see the summer whooshing by so quickly.

PS. If you got an e-mail that ‘Millenicom is BACK’ – Read our News Article on their new T-Mobile Plans