Antique Boat Show

This past Saturday, Sheila and I attended the Lake Champlain Maritime Festival and Antique Boat Show at the Burlington waterfront. The weather was beautiful and it was a really nice day, for the most part.

Adam had planned to meet us at the boathouse for the show but then was invited to visit a friend's house on Lake Champlain that same day. This friend of Adam's is an old student of mine and I knew that he and Adam are rarely in the same place at the same time. They both have been traveling the world extensively and on completely different schedules and completely different routes.

Anyway, their paths finally happened to cross, serendipitously, so Adam had the opportunity to spend the day and evening with this old friend and there was no way Sheila nor I would ever even think about requesting he change those plans to spend more time with us. It wouldn't be fair to Adam nor would it have been fair to his friend, Jonathan. If I would have requested anything, it would have been a request to meet them at Jonathan's lake house!

Actually, I have absolutely nothing to complain about when it comes to how much time I had with Adam on his shortened visit. Adam and I had a few hours to talk every single morning and talk we did! Mostly, we talked about Air Force stuff... but we also talked about things he missed in the past year... our own travels... events... outings... our time at the lake house... our holidays at home and on the road... there was a lot of 'family' stuff to talk about each morning. Of course, we also talked about all the advantages of his next duty assignment as well as options beyond this new assignment. Considering the amount of time I spent with Adam each morning, I'd be the last person to feel the need to request more time with Adam. On the contrary, we are happy that he found time to spend with Jonathan.

We usually have friends join us for this antique boat show... unfortunately, they were out of town during this year's show. Sheila's parents normally join us as well but both Sheila and I had thought her parents had plans to attend another event so we didn't even discuss inviting them (it turns out they didn't have other plans, unfortunately). So, Sheila and I attended this year's boat show alone.

I don't think they could ever have enough antique boats to satisfy my hunger for these beautiful pieces of art but we enjoyed viewing what was showcased at this year's show. There were also other events scheduled in Burlington on this day so it was a great day to be in Burlington.

After viewing all the boats at the boathouse and along the waterfront, we walked up to Macy's so Sheila could buy a skirt she regretted not buying when we visited Macy's last weekend. Then we walked over to Vermont Pub & Brewery for some lunch and a few cold drinks.

Vermont Pub & Brewery was nice, as usual. We sat in the air conditioned atrium overlooking City Hall Park... it was comfortable and very nice!

Mid-afternoon, we headed back down to the waterfront and the boathouse. We checked out the boats again as well as some trains which were coming and going along the waterfront and then... my health crashed.

I assume the heat triggered some Systemic Mastocytosis issues which bordered on anaphylaxis. I was very lightheaded and my vision was narrowed, sparkly and even had some occasional black spots... a clear sign of impending anaphylaxis. We found some shade... I pumped in some emergency medications... Sheila ran off to get me a cold, fake lemonade (I was hoping for some real lemonade but this tasted like powdered garbage, through no fault of Sheila's)... and then we slowly made our way back to the car.

We had about a mile to walk to get back to the car so this was a bit of a problem considering the state of my health. We took it one step at a time and took a few breaks in the shade. Thankfully, it really was a rather mild sunny day as opposed to a hot sunny day! The hotter the environment, the worse my health.

All in all, we had a great time at the show! I could have done without the health problems which put a damper on the end of the afternoon but, for the most part, we had a great time!