3 September 2011

Left Fern Lake just on 8 o’clock.  First stop: Kingsley’s Farm Stand to procure corn for export to Virginia.  Leaving Kingsley’s driveway I had two choices: turn right and backtrack to the Leicester / Whiting Road to VT 30 to US 4 well west of Rutland to New York State or turn left and take the route that would lead me either to VT 73 (which I thought likely was closed due to high water / damage from Hurricane Irene) or to US 7 to Pittsford / VT 3 through Proctor / US 4A and US 4 in West Rutland to New York State.  Knowing that the Rutland area had been hit hard by additional heavy rains a couple of days ago, I turned right.  Got part way to Whiting and found the road closed due to high water.  Visions of not being able to get out of Vermont in my mind, I headed south.  Fortunately US 7 in Brandon had been repaired… though the buildings next to the road where the river overflowed are complete toast.  VT 73 also was closed as expected.  Fingers crossed, I proceeded to VT 3… which was open, but the trees and bushes either side of the road had mud lines about three feet above road level.  Whew!  With the detours, took over an hour to get to New York State (consistently a 45 minute drive no matter the route taken).  Considering this was a major holiday weekend, traffic was only moderately heavy all the way to Virginia, with but one or two very minor slowdowns the whole trip.  Consequently, made the entire voyage in just over 8½ hours… an excellent time!