Stuck in Vermont, Episode 3

Last Saturday, Meghan and I took a lovely drive to my hometown of Johnson, Vermont to attend the 5th Annual Johnson Winter Carnival. We were hoping to see some Snow Volleyball but alas, the event was cancelled.

Luckily, there were all sorts of other fun things to do such as ice skating, cake walking, snow sculpture gazing, bake sale buying and clog watching. To see more, watch my third Stuck in Vermont vlog!

Best of all, we got to see the RimRock Cloggers performing with Clean Fill on the Johnson Elementary School gymnasium stage. It was a mix of seasoned performers such as Amanda Preston, Kayla MacDonald, Shoshie and Aliza Silverstein and some younger students having a good time and learning from the masters.

The fiddle plucking was infectious and it was hard to stand still with all that upbeat clogging going on. Neglecting my cameraman duties, I felt the overwhelming urge to tap my feet or clap along. I spoke to the girls after the show and Shoshie said that they wanted to give the feeling of hanging out on a friend's back porch and relaxing with casual clogging, fiddle playing and family members. That is a back porch I would like to spend some time on.

Even more fun, I ran into an old friend of mine from Johnson Elementary School, Amy Gilbert. She didn't recognize me at first and claimed my skin was a lot darker (did California make me Mexican?). Of course, the first question out of Amy's mouth after she recognized me was, "Do you have kids?" I looked at my video camera and said, "Sort of."

I also got to see the amazing Molly Hatfield, my bestest friend from Hyde Park's Lamoille Union High School - but only for a brief moment. I missed the chance to see her 10 year old daughter Olive who I last saw at the wee age of 2 years old. Molly and her family are blue-blooded Vermonters who built their own house, kill their own meat and live off the land. You'll be seeing them in a Stuck in Vermont vlog real soon. In the meantime, here is Episode 3: