Vermont......... It's all I need

My good friend CT called me last week to see how things were going with my Dad. During our conversation, we began talking about a trip she will be taking to visit her daughter in Hawaii and asked if we had any trips planned. I told her nope. Nothing special........"just going to Vermont. It's all I need." She told me we should make bumper stickers with that slogan. This could be the new Vermont tourism slogan. (I LOVERMONT is soooo yesterday anyways) :-)
So,if you start seeing bumper stickers saying "Vermont......It's all I need", you will know where they came from.
T-shirts may follow. :-)
Which brings me to todays photos and todays blog.
For the past 21 days straight, I have been visiting my Dad in the hospital.....some days staying for 10-12 hours a day. I needed to decompress. Mr. S knows exactly what I need.....and all it took for him to say was "Let's go to Vermont for the day", and I was there.
We drove up at 5 am this morning. Just me and Mr. S on a roadtrip to my happy place.......my favorite place on the planet. There were no sights, sounds, or smells from the hospital. There were no words exchanged between us such as pain, TPN, ileus, fistula, bowel movements, foley catheter and CT Scan. There were no sounds from IV pumps, heart monitors, blood pressure cuffs and footseps of  Drs., nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, and portable x-ray machines.
I see and hear these things on a daily basis while doing my job at work. But, when the patient laying in the bed is someone that you love, these sights, sounds, and smells somehow become exaggerated, and hit a nerve.
Yes, today was a day to decompress and get away from it all. As soon as we pulled up to our house in Vermont and got out of the car, two kids were driving tractors down the road. The smell of manure was wafting in the air from the farm across the street. I was in my glory! These are the sights, sounds, and smells that bring me peace. (Yes, I find comfort in the smell of manure....does that make me strange? Perhaps....but I don't care) :-)
Vermont......It's all I need.

I hope my two sisters and my mother can find a happy place to get away from it all too. It's good for the soul. My brother has arrived from Ohio, so our whole family is together. My father was transported to a hospital in Boston this past week. I will update again at some point.

By the way......hope you have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!