After a good work-out early this morning, I was feeling particularly strong and full of joie-de-vivre as I pulled out of the parking lot of the Wagon Wheel Motel in Lenox. I wish that feeling had lasted all day, but I became increasingly tired as the day went on, until by the time I got to Burlington around 5.00 p.m., all I wanted to do was crawl into bed, which I actually did.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. There were some things I wanted to do in Lenox before leaving, chief amongst which was to visit the Tanglewood Festival grounds. This is one of the World's most prestigious festivals of classical music, and it takes place on a truly beautiful stage of immense green lawns and old trees framed by the Berkshire hills, near Lenox.

The lawns at Tanglewood

Everywhere you went on the grounds, there was music. In the main shed, Ozawa was leading the BSO through a practice of Mozart's "Mass in C Minor". I've rarely been moved by Mozart's music, but it must have been written for a setting like this - the choral voices erupted from the shed and filled the space between the trees and the mountains with glorious sound. I just found a spot and listened for a while.

Listening to the BSO at Tanglewood

My next stop was the festival store, of course, to see if I could add to my coffee mug collection. Seven, dear, eager old lady volunteers were gabbing behind the counter, just waiting to be helpful. But they weren't allowed to touch the cash register, where a young professional woman reigned. As one of the old girls said to me, "It's seven indians and one chief."

I'd wanted to explore the old home of one of my favorite dead, white authors, Edith Wharton, but her home, The Mount, was under restoration, and there wasn't much to see. Like at most of the other cultural institutions I've visited on this trip, I was the only person under 70 years old, apart from some lesbians in their twenties, who no doubt wanted to channel Edith Wharton's spirit or something.

I'd been told that Lenox was a good town for bookstores, but either I entirely missed Lenox Town Center, or I was lied to, as I could find precious little of anything in downtown Lenox. So I set off North on Route 7 for the long drive to Burlington.

The drive is extremely scenic, and, at times, quite remote. Despite that, I couldn't take any photographs really, mainly because I spent most of my time trying to overtake ancient, and dreadfully slow drivers, and, once I'd overtaken them, I was too scared to stop in case they'd overtake me in return and I'd have it all to do over again! Vermont has a 55 mph speed limit everywhere, or so it seems, and Route 7 often goes many miles without any passing lanes, or spots.

I'd originally intended to take a circuituous route to take in some of the taller peaks and some waterfalls, but as the afternoon wore on I realized I was too tired for that, and decided to just stay with Route 7 all the way to Burlington. Once I'd checked into my hotel there, I pretty much went right to bed for a good nap.

To my mind, Burlington has two main attractions. It's a lively city in a beautiful setting, right on Lake Champlain, with the Adirondack Mountains in the distance. The other main attraction is that it's filled with young people going to the universities there, and as I left my hotel after my nap, and drove down Route 2 to the downtown area, I passed three shirtless young guys hitting a softball in their fraternity grounds. Yumm!

I drove down to the waterfront and joined the evening strollers, watching the sun descend into Lake Champlain.

The area by the waterfront was obviously cruisy, and a couple of cute guys gave me a good long look. They were so straight-looking boy- next-door types (the kind that never cruise me), that I wasn't sure if they were gay or not. I realized later, as one of them walked back and forth past my table, when I was having dinner at an outdoor restaurant, that he was definitely gay, but unfortunately we never got further than a couple of awkward smiles each.

Dinner at New England Culinary Institute