315 miles, 7.3 hours.

We finally left Hastings-on-Hudson! After a quick stop at the Post Office to send some packages, we ran up the Taconic Parkway. These parkways are such a civilized thing- controlled-access highway (3 lanes each direction), pretty, no trucks allowed. There is little traffic, and very little civilization visible- amazing, considering we were leaving from New York City.

Next was a series of highways through New York, Massachusetts, and into Vermont. We stopped and had a bite at a place that had been a market/wayside since 1770; it was weird to eat at a place that has been open much longer than Portland has been settled.

Western Massachusetts and Vermont were incredibly pretty. We were on narrow highways, going through idyllic little postcard towns as you would expect to find in Vermont. The architecture, especially of the churches, was incredible. Even the barns and simple old houses had a lot of style. In some ways it felt like we had stepped back into a pre-suburban life: no cookie-cutter homes, no McDonalds, no huge Wal-Marts or other chains.

Tamara noticed a lack of clearcut forests. There are a lot of trees, certainly a lot of hardwoods and softwoods, and we saw a couple of trucks full of cut logs. But there was no evidence on where they came from. Do they practice selective logging, do they keep the clearcuts hidden from view, or what?

Our campsite was down a small gravel road not far from Killington. It's a dispersed campsite, so we are in a very secluded spot, with our tent on a very fluffy patch of moss.