July 7 2023 Day Thirty One

     

                                          July 7^th – Wilmington VT – Day 31

Ginny (Virginia) the owner of Village Pub, who has been here for 32 years and has owned this bar for 12. I couldn’t believe how many cans of Pabst were sitting on the bar. I’m in the middle of know where in Vt and everyone is drinking Pabst. I’ve been to bars closer to Wisconsin that don’t carry, Pabst, but out here they know a good beer when they’ve drank one. Got my last Pabst for free since it wasn’t cold. They had to restock because of how many beers have been drank and it sure wasn’t me that drank that many Pabst. 

 

That’s how my story started 2 years ago, but obviously I didn’t finish the story; one because of the late night of drinking, and two I just wasn’t in the mood to write after the day I had. Got a good start from Imlay City MI since I didn’t drink very late that night since I was already an hour off with time but made my route East thru Canada into the states. I did checkout the weather with my last gas stop in Canada and saw that I’d probably be hitting the constant rain that the east coast has been getting somewhere around Buffalo. I figured I might as well don the rain gear so I can try to make good time heading East and hopefully get to NH sooner rather than later, but apparently that didn’t work oud that way since I ended up in the middle of know where Wilmington VT. My path took me thru Niagara Falls to get me back into the states and although I was thinking about the buffalo wings in Buffalo, figured I’d stay straight on the interstate to head east thru NY state. I did hit that rain just on the other side of Buffalo and it started as a light enough rain that I’d have no problems still doing freeway speed heading east.

 

That didn’t last long though because the further East I started to get, the heavier the rain that I was happy I had put on the rain gear when I did. The rain started getting heavy enough that Siri started giving me warnings of flash floods in the area that soon I was down to about 30 MPH along the shoulder with my flashers on. I was having a hard enough time seeing the road that I’m sure drivers behind and in front of me had no idea I was riding along. Siri kept directing me to get off the freeway to head north away from the heavy rain, but I thought staying the course and sticking to freeway travel would get me where I wanted to be sooner, rather than later. Again, that didn’t work the way I had hoped. I did make my way to Albany where it was time to leave the freeway, but the rain had already taken a toll not only on my time, but my comfort of staying a little dry in a massive thunderstorm with nothing but raingear trying to keep me dry.

 

Once off the freeway, the driving was even slower since I was now on the windy, turny roads toward VT with no letup by the rain. With many more miles for me to get to NH and with the rain taking its toll, I pulled into Wilmington and saw some interesting bars and places to eat that thought it might be a good stop for me, but with the hotels full downtown thought I’d keep heading East, that was until I got to the outskirt of town and saw this dump of a motel where I figured I could get a cheap room for the night and get out of the rain. It was just like what I said, a dump of a motel, but cheap that I think I can handle it even though it’ll be over a couple of miles walk to get myself back downtown for some grub and drinking. I got as cleaned up as I could, but I figured I had been riding thru rain all day that I had a free shower, that all I wanted to do was eat and find a bar to work on my story for the day. 

Well, that’s how I ended up at the Village Pub. I did find a little bar, The Maple Leaf which looked like it had some good food that I stopped in and did have a pretty good dinner. They had a fried chicken sandwich on the menu that looked good and according to the bar tender it is one of their best sellers that I figured that, and a beer would be good. It was good and although it was a bar, not the kind of bar where all the locals would be hanging out that I did ask where a good place to visit with the locals would be that the bar tender sent me a few blocks away where all the locals hang out, the Village Pub. Like I started this story with, I couldn’t believe how many cans of Pabst were on the bar in front of customers and apparently a favorite beer amongst the locals. I thought I could handle this for the night, and it’d be a good place to work on a story. You can tell that didn’t happen since I didn’t have any time to write, but had more fun talking with the locals and getting the scoop on Ginny and her daughter that works the bar too.

 

The later it got the warmer the beer since they couldn’t restock the fridges with Pabst quick enough that a few free warm beers worked for me. Now it’s making the long trek back to the dive motel a bit drunk, but I made it downtown that I should be able to make it back and this isn’t bear country that I have to worry about anything attacking me on the way. What I should’ve done is looked for a driver.