Vermont!

If I were Michael Bloomberg, I would enact a citywide law requiring all New Yorkers to get the hell out of the city at least every two months. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate NY and consider myself a thoroughly urban person, but you know the city has you in its grips when you forget that there are places where there is no smog and where you can't always hear the roar of traffic. It was an absolute joy to get out for a few days. 

Vermont is gorgeous. I mean, take-your-breath-away beautiful. I hadn't been in New England since my family went camping in Maine over ten years ago, and I had quite forgotten how incredible it is. I can very much see myself living there someday (oh, I am a northerner at heart, aren't I?). You know a place is spectacular when it makes you gasp and point even in the pouring rain - which was the case for the 2/3 of our retreat. Most of the time, the fog up in the hills (we were almost in the Green Mountains) was so thick that you could hardly see past the tip of your nose - it was very Wuthering Heights-esque. 

The point of the retreat, if you will, was to do theological profiling, but mostly we just sat around and relaxed (exactly as a retreat should be, in my opinion). We were staying in a truly marvelous house, which was once a barn, with lofted bedrooms in each of the four corners. Wood burning stove, lots of comfortable chairs, stacks upon stacks of books... frankly, I was so enchanted by it that I had a hard time coaxing myself to go outdoors (though the trouble of putting on a ton of rain gear might have had something to do with that as well). We ate well, we drank well (for those of you harboring any doubts that my churchy ambitions will stop me from having fun, know that it was the priest's idea to buy a case of beer at a rest stop, not ours), we took lots of long walks in the woods, we read, and, best of all, we paid off our sleep debts. Just what the doctor ordered.

An additional bonus for you, my deprived readers: photographic inspiration struck me at last, and I have boatloads of pictures up on facebook! If anyone really wants them on flickr, let me know and I'll work on it (they take forever to upload).