Dome & Gloam

Heliocentric XXII

There was a plan in 1980 to build a dome over the city of Winooski, Vermont.

We were on our way home to New York City from Montreal. It was the last leg of our trip—burning gasoline for a year on the roads of North America—and in Vermont we stopped at a coffee shop in the small city of Winooski.

You might want to check out the Earth Clock — when we asked the server about things to see locally — it’s a stone circle, y’know like Stonehenge, and it’s a compass and a clock.

A month ago they had a big celebration there for the Autumn Solstice, but it’s a great place to watch a sunset — catch it if you hurry. Next town over, Burlington, across that bridge.

And hey, if you don’t know it, you’re in the infamous place that wanted to build a dome to cover the entire city in the late 1970s. It does get frigid here, and there was an oil crisis. Buckminster Fuller was interested.

As we drove towards the spot along Lake Champlain I thought out loud — well it’s a more interesting craziness than those folks in Vernon, Florida.

Parking our car we walked towards the stone formation; our timing just right. We stood in the peaceful quiet on the flat center stone with dates carved into it as we watched the sun preparing to descend, then dip down beyond the mountains on the other side, flooding the rippling blue waters of the lake with magnificent reds and golds.