Circus Camp and Montreal

Okay, this combination of trips to and from circus camp gets a little complicated. Here's the itinerary:

Wednesday Evening	Drive from Boston to Danville, VT and camp.
Thursday Morning	Drop Charlotte off at 36-hour camp.
Thursday Afternoon	John, Carol and Audrey hike Mt. Mansfield. Then visit Ben & Jerry's factory!
Friday	John, Carol and Audrey visit St. Johnsbury, VT
Friday Afternoon	Pick up Charlotte at camp, attend demonstrations.
Friday Evening	Drive to Montreal.
Saturday	Have an awesome day in Montreal. Run into our goof friend Ken from Seattle.
Sunday	Drive back to Greensboro, VT to drop Audrey off at week-long camp.
Sunday Evening	Drive home. Charlotte enjoys week of being only child.
All Week	Go to work blah blah blah.
Saturday Morning	Drive back to Greensboro, VT to pick up Audrey from camp. Attend demonstrations.
Saturday Evening/Sunday Morning	Stay in a fun cabin in Barton, VT. Have dinner in St. Johnsbury.
Sunday Afternoon	Attend opening performance of Circus Smirkus summer tour - in the Big Top in a pasture.
Sunday Evening	Drive home.

And here's the looooong story...

We've lost track but I think this is the fourth year that one or both of the girls has gone to Smirkus Camp. Audrey went to the 36-hour Smirkling Camp twice and this was her second year of week-long camp. This was Charlotte's second time at Smirkling Camp. Smirkling Camp takes place over a Thursday night and camp is more than three hours from home, so we make a vacation of it.

In past years camp has been held at various boarding schools that they rent. But over the past few years Circus Smirkus raised $2 million, purchased a farm near their headquarters and finally were able to build their own permanent home. They were in a mad dash to get it ready for the first camp session. They held a work party in early June and seemingly half of the population of Greensboro (population 700) showed up to help. They barely made it! The dorms were still in a somewhat unfinished state but no campers or parents cared.

After we dropped Charlotte off, Audrey and Carol and I headed to Stowe. I had scoped out possible hikes and Mt. Mansfield, the highest point in Vermont, sounded doable. Unfortunately the forecast said we'd get rain in the late afternoon so we were under some time pressure. The hike was steep, rocky and muggy. Audrey was not enjoying it. A few hundred feet below the summit we came across the Green Mountain Club's Taft Lodge. It was a great stopping place. After some lunch and a rest we headed back down.

It never did rain.

In the evening we headed to St. Johnsbury to eat at a new restaurant I had found while researching: Kingdom Taproom. We had a great flatbread and a fancy salad. We liked the atmosphere.

On Friday we returned to camp to pick up Charlotte and attend her demonstrations. My favorite thing was the tumbling: watching Charlotte use a springboard and do a somersault.

Every year when we do this trip I ponder the idea of going to Montreal. It's a five hour drive from home, but only two hours from camp. This year we decided to do it. We departed camp about 4:30 and took the scenic route to a minor border crossing at North Troy, VT. We ended up getting delayed there because we had a bundle of firewood in the van. After a search, they made us drive back into the US to drop the firewood at the side of the road, then enter Canada again.

After a stop at a mall to buy a Canadian SIM card so I could use my phone for navigation and to find restaurants and attractions in Montreal, we finally arrived at our hotel downtown around 10:30.

On Saturday we first headed for Old Montreal to find some breakfast. We stopped at the first tourist crepe restaurant we found. It was alright. It served the purpose.

While we were eating we kept hearing jazz from the place next door. It also seemed like a constant stream of people was entering that establishment. But we went on our way.

We explored Old Montreal, which is very quaint. We went into several art galleries and Audrey, in particular, enjoyed that. We saw a lot of very cool art. We also stopped to listen to a great duo on the street and bought their CD.

At some point one of us posted on Facebook that we were in Montreal and our dear friend Britt commented that our dear friend Ken, her husband, was there for a conference. We eventually made contact and made a plan to meet for dinner.

Meanwhile, we took the subway to the Olympic Village from 1976 and the nearby Botanical Gardens. In the gardens is a place called the Insectarium which is a museum of sorts devoted to bugs. We had been told it was popular with kids. All of us loved it! Very fascinating.

One especially cool exhibit was a viney tree that had been trained to grow in a long horizontal arch from its pot to another pot about 10 feet away. At one end was an ant colony, and at the other end was a food source (a flowering plant). There was no glass. One could watch the ants chew off bits of plant (often in a team) before one of them took on the load and carried it all the way back to the nest. There were thousands of ants all making the round trip. And the most fascinating thing? The ants don't eat the leaves: they feed them to a fungus that lives in their nest, and the ants farm and eat the fungus!

I was blown away by the variety of insects. Even just among beetles and moths there were hundreds and hundreds of different species. It is a fantastic illustration of the power of natural selection to drive specialization toward a species' unique niche.

After that we went up in the slanted observation tower that was built as the centerpiece of the Olympic Village for a great view of the city. Back at the base, we discovered the Olympic swimming and diving pool is "hidden" under the tower.

Then it was time to go find Ken and find some dinner.

Ken had been busy at a technical conference all week and hadn't seen much of the city. We took him back down through Old Montreal, looking for restaurants along the way. We ended up back at the square where we had breakfast and guess what looked best? That place with the jazz.

It turns out the place has a lovely courtyard and the jazz is live.

There was a long line, but a strange thing happened. I went to the front and asked the greeter how long the wait would be for a party of five. He told me to wait right there. We were confused for a minute or two, but then he told me to go back in line and get my party and in we went! To a fantastic table overlooking the stage! We're not sure what happened, but we didn't complain.

The setting was magical: a beautiful garden courtyard with a lively crowd enjoying a gorgeous summer evening while listening to live music. I was on cloud nine.

We really enjoyed hanging out with Ken. After dinner we watched some street performers, the girls had their sketch drawn and we ended with some ice cream. By the time we walked Ken back to his hotel and took the subway back to ours it was pretty late.

It had been an absolutely perfect day! Thank you for the nice introduction, Montreal!

Sunday morning we drove back to Vermont in order to drop Audrey off at camp at 3:00. Then we drove home.

Charlotte really enjoyed being the only child for a week!

Saturday morning we got up at 6:00am and drove back up to Greensboro to pick Audrey up at 10:00.

For this one-night stay I had reserved a cabin next to the river in Barton, VT, about 20 minutes from camp. The girls loved it. There was a pool, and we could walk up the river a short distance to a stone railroad viaduct that was picturesque. That night we drove back to St. Johnsbury to return to the Kingdom Taproom.

On Sunday we slept in a little and laid around. Then we had a late breakfast and visited a yard sale in Glover just down the road from Barton. We bought some dishes and an old shoe shine kit.

Then it was back to Greensboro for the 1:00 performance of Circus Smirkus - this was the initial performance of the 70-performance summer tour. I really like going to the inaugural performance because it is held in a big top in the middle of a pasture at the circus headquarters, which is an old farm down a long dirt road.

The performance was great, as always.

Finally, all the fun was over. it was time to drive back to Melrose once more and get back to normal life.

The part of Vermont we visit every year for camp is called the Northeast Kingdom. Every year when we're there I spend a lot of time fantasizing about living there because it is such a gorgeous landscape: very green, rolling hills with surprise vistas, scenic little rivers. Of course, we always see it in June. I bet the winters there feel pretty damn long.

We'll do it again next year! Although next year both girls will go to week-long camp so the logistics will be a little easier.