Zeke and I headed out the door and down Daisy Hill around five thirty yesterday morning on our long walk to the office. The Sun was just coming up in a great show of orange and reds. It had rained over night and the light glistened on lingering rain drops.

We weren't the only ones on a journey.

Down Daisy Hill and then north on rt120 into Lebanon. At that time of morning the traffic is pretty light. As each car goes by, and even more-so with trucks, the morning stillness is shattered in a violent eruption of sound. For all of our advances the automobile is still stuck back in an inefficient, brute-force age. We pretty them up with car make-overs, a swoop here, a bit of stylized plastic there, yet they still lose eighty percent of the fuel as waste heat.

We reached Lebanon and walked by construction sites gearing up for the day. One fellow stood at the edge in an orange vest. He sported well weathered skin, a shot of white hair jutting out from under hard hat, and a crumply cigar remnant worried over in the corner of his mouth. The day before he was joined by a worker in a plastic cowboy hard hat.

Down rt4 and past Rivermill where I've worked a couple of times. There is a generator deep in Rivermill's belly that produces electricity. Last I knew it was maintained by Roy, a physical manifestation of Nintendo's Mario. Roy replaced one of the massive generator bearings a few years back and people didn't know what to think. It was different, quiet. The failing bearing sent vibrations through the brick structure and produced a low, almost inaudible sound. Since it happened over a long time we hadn't really noticed.

Stop at Jake's to get a muffin while Zeke sits outside and shows off his new haircut. He used to have a timer and if I didn't come out of a store before it expired he'd get up and start looking. I was waiting in line at Butson's grocery store once and heard a commotion. The teenage cash register girls were all swooning over him. He'd somehow made it through the electric doors and laid down on a rug by the registers to wait.

The last leg of the journey is down rt4 between Slayton Hill and Longacres Nursery. No sidewalks, not much shoulder, and lots of Vermonters speeding by to make up for hitting the snooze button once too often. We'll often walk via the woods and Kings Grant housing area just to avoid that stretch of highway. The rushing traffic doesn't seem to bother Zeke, he struts up ahead like he owns the place.

For all I know, he does.

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