The sun broke through the cloudy horizon and I (once again) thoroughly enjoyed my flight on JetBlue. Man, I love that airline. The treatment they give you and the ease of it all... it's just a great customer experience.

I landed at Burlington airport. It was 0 degrees, with a windchill factor of -20. I walked out to try and find my rental car's shuttle, and froze my ass off. I was prepared- I mean, I was in long-sleeves, with a jacket, hat, gloves, and my face? It completely froze off.

Long story short, I found the shuttle after an hour. My face came back when I got into the heated bus and made the trip to the rental car place. I had my car and got a bite for lunch and hit the road to Stowe.

The only problem with this was that I went North instead of South. I didn't know this. I was fighting the window problem. See, the weather had dipped down to a biting -10 degrees and the window had to have constant, full-blast lovin' from the de-froster. But, if I gave the window all the love, my feet were freezing. I fiddled with this for a long time, and when I finally paid more attention to the road, I saw a sign that said "Canadian border: 6 miles".

I pulled over to check my map. Damned if I didn't go North instead of South. I looked into the rear-view mirror at my reflection and gave myself a wink. "Here goes" I said and pulled back on 89N.

It wasn't very hard to get into Canada. I wasn't expecting it to be, really. When the guard asked me how long I planned on being there, I didn't really know, so I told her "a few hours."

I welcomed myself into Quebec. It was familiar territory- not this stretch of course, but the landscape seemed reminiscent of my last jaunt up there. Flat, wide-open and lots of farmland. The only difference this time was the snow, the biting cold wind, and the streaks of snow that striped the highway in a hypnotic pattern as I drove along.

I stopped to leave my contribution at an ESSO bathroom and drove on all the way up to Montreal. Fearing being stuck in a foreign land in the dark, freezing tundra, I opted to turn back to the States before the sun went down. I'll explore Montreal's city at a later time.

I don't even want to go into details about how easy it was to come back into the US, except to say that I am really, really, really scared now.

After about an hour, I pulled into Stowe, Vermont. It's a quaint little town, nestled in the mountains Northwest of Montpelier. My hotel was once again a little splurge for myself, a beautiful old hotel known as the Green Mountain Inn. Established in 1833, this hotel has been pretty much a landmark of Stowe since its existence. The rooms resembled more of a bed and breakfast than a hotel, with fancy stencil-work and a really high post/canopy bed, with all sorts of homely features. I was really happy I did this.

I unpacked and started going through all the brochures I had picked up earlier. I wanted something spicy, so I found the Cactus Cafe, a Mexican place a few miles away. Yum! They made the best margarita I think I've ever had. The stuffed jalepeno poppers were great too. I had a veggie burrito, which was all I could take after the chips/salsa.

I called it a night shortly after that. It had been a long day. What a treat it was to add Montreal and Quebec to my list of places visited this year!!