evan

We had a nice trip the rest of the way home from our Thanksgiving in New Jersey today. This morning we had breakfast in the Holiday Inn Express that we stayed in (very nice, new, clean, good pool and exercise room -- a good value for $109/night dual queens).

We then spent the rest of our morning shopping at the Whole Foods Market. It's the closest Whole Foods to our house in Montreal -- hold it, no, it looks like the one in Portland (Maine) is closer. Who knew? We picked up a lot of hippy-dippy personal hygiene items that we can't seem to find in Montreal, and I also got a few bottles of wine to take across the border.

I got a bottle of 2003 Andrew Will Cellars Champoux Vineyards -- an interesting Columbia Valley red blend, mostly Cabernet Sauvignon that I think will cellar nicely for a couple of years, but not too urgent. And I also picked up a 2004 Hanzell Vineyards Chardonnay, Sonoma Valley, which I also think will sit nicely for a year or so. We'll see -- I'm not really big on cellaring yet, but I'd like to give a few wines a try.

We stopped in Amherst (Massachusetts) for lunch at the Amherst Brewing Company, which has good pub grub, generous portions, and really nice house brews available. We also dropped into a few bookstores. Books are a great cross-border purchase for Canadian residents, since their cover price is usually ridiculously skewed. For example: I got a Paul Auster hardback that was labeled at $22 US, $28 Canada. That's with the loonie trading at US$1.01!

Our drive up to Montreal was pretty decent, although we had a ton of rain and snow that made the actual driving kind of sucky. We stopped in a cruddy gas station in Sharon, Vermont that didn't have a bathroom (doh!) and didn't stop much afterwards until Burlington. We got dinner at a great place in downtown Burlington, Burlington Hearth (AKA American Flatbread). Great oven-fired pizza, organic ingredients, nice atmosphere, more microbrew. Fabulous.

We got across the border all right, although I needed some time to get my new work permit for 2008. Then a long snowy drive back home, where my friend Damien from Austin is staying with us for this week during MIGS. Should be a fun week -- we have lots to catch up on.

tags: travel massachusetts wine vermont burlington amherst montreal

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