Trip To Burton Factory: Part 1

On Saturday, my amigos and I made the trek up from Middlebury to Burlington for a day of exploration. We stopped by the Burton headquarters to see their flagship store. Like all flagships, this one was over staffed and very loud. However, in their lobby were twenty snowboards documenting both the evolution of the sport but also Burton as a brand.

Look at the evolving shapes.The Safari color was is awesome. Very excessive.
These boards are great examples of the decadence that defined the 1980s.

On Her Majesty's Secrete Service

Yellow Scion on US-4 Near Killington Vermont

(Note the matching yellow splash guard)

Cruising at 63 mph on US-24 somewhere near Killington Vermont, I stumbled across a banana-yellow Scion with two beautiful, handmade Kayaks strapped on top. I flew by without stopping. For the next mile, I debated turning around for a better look. I down shifted to third, pulled U-ey, and reached for my camera.

I have always been interested with the failed marketing of the Honda Element and the Toyota's entire Scion brand. In the early 00's, auto executives decided to build some new cars specifically targeting the emerging generation Y market. They failed miserably.

These photos should make the executives at Honda and Toyota cringe for the following reasons:

1. These photos were taken in rural Vermont, not in a raging metropolis like LA, New York, or Tokyo (the stomping ground of generation Y urbanists)

2. Gingerly Strapped to this scion were two breathtakingly beautiful, handmade Kayaks. These kayaks have two implications. First, these two Kayaks were undoubtedly owned by two aging, outdoorsy, LL Bean-shopping baby boomers not the hipsters from LA. Second, the combined value of these two kayaks surely surpasses the 10,000 MSRP (+/- depending on options) that this Scion Xb rolled off the lot for in 2005, making the entire spectacle that much more odd. These empty-nesters were merely being thrifty with their most recent automobile purchase, not splurging on their first.

There is something strangely beautiful about the juxtaposition of a timeless wooden kayak and banana yellow Scion set in the backdrop of a Sunday in Vermont.

The Last Three Days

For the last three days I have been trekking around the backwoods of New England. I saw plenty of interesting things and over the next few days i will be putting up some articles about my journey. Until then, here is a link to the Picasa Album.