GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
And welcome back to CoffeeBreak. This is the stand-in for Daybreak until Aug. 23—just a playful little diversion until the grownup version returns. Did you know that Vermont once wanted to link up lakes Champlain and Memphremagog with the Connecticut? This was a while ago, admittedly, during the canal-building fever that followed the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825. But it's a reminder that technologists always dream big.There were serious plans, including a route proposed by Dewitt Clinton Jr. that would have brought boats from Memphremagog down the Black River Valley, through Lake Eligo, down the Lamoille over to Joe’s Pond, then into the Passumpsic and Stevens rivers and finally to the Connecticut. Maybe it was the two-mile tunnel through a hill in Walden that hung things up?Meanwhile, here's what's going on in the woods this first week of August. Northern Woodlands' Elise Tillinghast is back with....something interesting—but if you've been following along you know by now that I prepped this item before she finished writing it, so you'll just have to go see for yourself.It's on Earth—in fact, it's in the US—but it doesn't look like it. That may be because astrophotographer Derek Culver likes to find out-of-the-way places for his images. In this case, the White Pocket, part of the Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness in Arizona. "White Pocket is hours down remote dirt and sand roads in an extremely dark area, perfect for astrophotography,” he tells My Modern Met's Sara Barnes. I'd say the drive is totally worth it.Just what does it take to win gold in Snoozing: Sofa and Floor? I dunno, but Olive's got it figured out. As for Mabel? Maybe next year's world championships, Andrew Cotter reassures her.
Here's Joni Mitchell, Roger McGuinn, and Bob Dylan, hanging out at Gordon Lightfoot's house in 1975 during Dylan's Rolling Thunder tour,
See you Friday.
Daybreak Where You Are: The Album. Photos of daybreak and sunsets around the Upper Valley, Vermont, New Hampshire, and the US, sent in by readers.
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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Banner by Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
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