Let me say here that Vermont has the best rest areas of any place I've visited. Which wasn't really all that many places before, but hey, eleven states in seven days, I have some additional experience. Interesting trees, beautiful flowers. I didn't realize before this trip that Vermont is the home of Green Mountain Coffee, which happens to be one my favorites, particularly Dark Magic. They have a Green Mountain coffee bar at the rest area for a donation. I believe I drank a record number of coffees this past week.
Another interesting feature of Vermont is that there are no billboards and very little signage of any sort and miles and miles between towns. When there is a gas station or a restroom, I suggest you use it.
We arrived at our little cabin that evening The neighbor and owner was just next door and invited us to partake of the garden. He left this info on the frig. While it felt a little strange to be putzing in a stranger's garden, I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to look around. The gardens and flowers everywhere in Vermont were huge and beautiful. We had our yummy leftovers from the evening before, so I picked a few greens and veggies to make a stir fry and tap- dah, another great dinner.
We head reservations in Northwest Burlington for Vermont's best lobster dinner and it rained gently all day, so we left early and explored a bit. We went to Waterbury and sampled Cabot cheeses of all varieties,
Having just completed a Johnny Appleseed unit at school, and learning that he planted trees primarily to use the fruit for cider, I wanted pictures to show my students. While there were cider mills, we never found a single postcard with a cider mill picture. Aunt Tish and SuzQ remained on apple alert throughout.
We enjoyed sampling lots of Lake Champlain's Chocolates and looking at Darn Good Socks. I was certain that I did not want to bring home souvenirs of the knicky-knack sort. Nearly everyone needs socks and even though you can get them on Amazon, they are made in Vermont and have a neat story, so I brought the kids socks.
Tish had been on the look out for covered bridges and on the way home we found one.
The next morning dawned with no trace of rain and beautiful blue skies. The perfect morning to visit Blueberry Lake.
So beautiful.
When we got back to the cabin, I discovered a hitchhiker.
We got fixed up a bit, as our evening would end at the Von Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe and headed out.
We stopped by Ben and Jerry's, but the line for an ice cream was too long. Actually, that was the longest wait we encountered on the entire trip.
I just loved this little town. it was easy to see how it reminded the Von Trapp's of Austria.
It is rather interesting to go on a trip with folks who are very like you. Being the nurturing sort, my sister girls and I spent a lot of time just trying to mother each other. If I cooked then they washed and dried. We managed seven days with no harsh words or meltdowns. Each one always had their act together and were timely. That was very nice. Collectively and individually, we are not particularly light hearted, but there were a couple of funny moments. This was one.
After seeing this sign several times, my sister told me Bear Pond books might be ones I wanted to check out, since she kept seeing signs for them. I pointed out that I believed that was the name of the bookstore itself. "Duh," was her response. That wasn't quite as funny as finding our last cabin on the trip though.
Both my sister girls have some allergy issues which have resulted in not hearing so well. Then you have one in the front and one in the back. I sort of wish I had an audio of our trip, because it is not funny to not hear well, but the repeated confusion in conversations made me laugh numerous times. It was always a "Whose on first?" in the car.
The afternoon was quickly gone and it was time to head further up the mountain and visit the Von Trapp's.
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