Wish I Were Here: The Vermont Summer Bucket List

There’s no getting around it: 2023 has been a cruel summer — hat tip to Bananarama. Even before historic flooding washed out a good chunk of the state last month, the season’s early going was marked by weird cool stretches, uncomfortable heat waves, beach closures from cyanobacteria (or worse) and asthma-triggering smoke from the Canadian wildfires.

Granted, the fires have made for some epic sunsets, but they also regularly cast Vermont and the Northeast in an eerie haze that makes it easier than ever to envision the apocalypse — and to imagine it might not be so far off, especially in light of the recent dire climate crisis reports.