The Long and Winding Roadtrip Weekend, Part 1

Boy, what a weekend. It was the grand finale to the lacrosse season, and I have to say, it’s nice to get a break. It was a bit of a time commitment for everyone. N’s lacrosse team played in this big lacrosse tournament up in Middlebury, which is about two hours away from here. It’s actually really beautiful up there, and the town is really nice because there is a fairly big university in town (Middlebury U), one of those expensive liberal arts colleges with a good reputation.

The tournament is the Green Mountain Shootout, and it’s a pretty big deal. You get to see the lacrosse community in all its grandeur, and in some ways, it rivals the hockey community. Lacrosse is a big deal up here. The tournament covers two days, and in a cruel twist of fate, we landed the first and last games of the weekend. That meant 8:00 on Saturday, and 4:00 on Sunday. This complicated our lives a bit. It was going to be difficult for N (and all of us) to get up at 5:00AM, drive for two hours, and then play two hours of lacrosse. I know a lot of his teammates did just that.

One of the parents told me that he was going up Friday and had a room in town, and I thought, what a great idea. Of course, we were way behind the curve, and we couldn’t get a room in town for the life of us. There was something going on in town, maybe graduation, and all the hotels were booked. We had to come up with an alternate plan, so R went to work in search of a place to stay. This was complicated by the fact that we didn’t know the area, and at some point, all these small towns look the same. She finally found a room at a B&B in Shoreham, which is about 20 mins out of Middlebury. We had no idea what it was like, but in the end, we just needed a place to sleep. We now had a plan.

N had his final practice on Friday, followed by a BBQ and party. We got home around 7:00, grabbed our toothbrushes, and hit the road. There are several ways to get to Middlebury, but we had to go a roundabout way since we were actually staying in Shoreham, so it took us a little longer. We arrived at the Shoreham Inn around 9:30, brushed out teeth, and went immediately to sleep. It was unfortunate that we couldn’t get more out of our visit, but we had to get some sleep. One thing was for certain, you could tell we were in farm country.

We woke up around 6:30, grabbed a bite, and hit the road. We missed out on breakfast at the B&B, which is a bummer because I love breakfast in hotels/B&Bs, but what are you going to do? We had to also find the darn field in Middlebury, which was unfamiliar territory for us, so I had a little bit of anxiety with my morning coffee. Luckily, they had a lot of signs out in town, and we found the field. You couldn’t miss it, the place is huge, and there were lacrosse people everywhere.

The games were great, N’s team won both. N didn’t score, but he played a lot at attacker and the coach even put him in at midfield, which is cool, because I think he’s the only one that young to play midi. You can definitely feel the excitement of the games, and people take lacrosse seriously. Now as difficult as it was getting up early, the benefit of playing in the early AM was that it was nice and cool. By the end of the game, you could tell it was going to be hot. Afterward, we went back to the B&B and packed up our things to leave.

The Shoreham Inn was nice and cozy, but of course, I had a couple of issues. First off, they didn’t seem very flexible with breakfast. I can’t say I blame them since there weren’t many guests, but the window for food was small (7:30-9:30), and they didn’t have too much in the way of choices. I personally like a bit of a spread and some variety, but I should be more understanding. The other issue I had was that when I asked for a later checkout, she said it would be better if we checked out at 11:00. Again, I understand if you have a cleaning person coming at a set time, but a little flexibility is appreciated, especially since we were running about. On the whole, the place was nice, there were just a couple of minor issues.

Anyway, we checked out, and we figured that since we were up there, we should make a trip out of it. We decided to drive over to Lake Champlain and take the ferry over to New York and see Fort Ticonderoga. That was fun, not to mention educational. The fort is huge, covering thousands of acres, and we spent a few hours there. We had lunch at the cafe, which totally threw off our healthy eating plan, but that’s what happens when you travel. By about 3:00 we decided it was time to head home, because we not only had the long drive, but we had to factor in time on the ferry.

We got home by early evening, and I for one, was exhausted. We still had one more day of lacrosse to go to, and in retrospect, it would have made more sense to have spent Saturday night up there, but that chews up the weekend, and we had things to do on the home front.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Seth Oliver Photographic Art, uZer42, and rbglasson for the pics.