Random Towers of Northern Vermont, March 2009

The Home Town Team celebrated their 100th anniversary season in 2009. (Astute observers will note that this makes them eight years older than the league in which they play.) Since I had never seen them play in person—not at the old arena, nor the new one—it seemed worth the expense of tickets and a downtown hotel to experience at least one home game this season. (Usually I only get to see them when they come to Boston to play the Bruins, although I didn't go at all this year.) Thankfully, and unlike teams around here, they actually hold back a few hundred tickets for each game to be sold on-line during the season—so i was able to get good tickets directly from the team, for a workable date, without having to pay scalpers' rates.

Knowing that I still had a fair amount of home-town airchecking to do, I scheduled a two-and-a-half-day vacation, leaving work early on Friday, March 20, to head up to Burlington, where I stayed overnight. (I didn't stop in The Home Town, Bolton, on the way up as it was dark and there really isn't much to see there even when the sun is up.) The next day, I drove south to Middlebury and back again, to aircheck some stations that are only decent towards the southern end of Lake Champlain. I had lunch at Bove's restaurant on Pearl Street, after poking my head into the Radio Deli (also on Pearl Street) and deciding that it wasn't worth much more attention than that. Then I headed up to Montreal, checked in to the hotel, and watched CBC Sportsweekend's coverage of the world bobsled (or “bobsleigh” as it's called in Canadian) event taking place in Lake Placid that day. (Or at least I assume it was same-day coverage; I don't think they actually said.) At the appointed time, I made my way down St. Antoine St. to the Bell Centre, presented my ticket, and took my seat. (For what it's worth, the seating in the Bell Centre is the most uncomfortable arena seating that I've ever experienced. Fenway Park is more comfortable!)

The following day, I headed back home by way of the Northeast Kingdom. I wasn't planning on taking any photos in Canada, but Scott reminded me that CHLT (630 Sherbrooke) was about to cease to exist, so I figured out how to get there from Autoroute 55, and after taking my photos, I headed back down the old two-lane highway to Rock Island, the Quebec part of the village famously split by the U.S.-Canada border (the Vermont part being Derby Line, part of the town of Derby). I turned around before crossing the border there, preferring instead to use the I-91 crossing where the border guards would presumably be less bored. I took the first exit, to see what the village of Derby Line actually looked like, and ended up passing the U.S. customs inspection station on Route 5 anyway (despite not having recrossed the border: see this map).