This logo has been on signs and T Shirts everywhere. But my favorite T Shirt was in a liquor store of all places: It said: “ I didn’t do it. Nobody saw me do it. I want to talk to Grandma” ! I texted this to Emily and asked her if I should buy it, and she replied “No but get the tattoo for her forehead”. LOL …Our last few phone calls and IM’s with her have all been about potty training Abbie. Only a Grammy who is a child developmentalist can delight in “poop phone calls”!
Vermont is definitely quirky. Dave and I said it is similar West Virginia but more sophisticated. They both have beautiful scenery everywhere with no large towns. In fact they pride themselves on this! Vermont is “yuppie” and WV is "red neck" which is a term of endearment in NASCAR country! Vermont has B&B’s and Antique stores everywhere. And we’ve noticed a new landscape feature. The houses still have few foundation plantings but they really like their green grass and lawns! Some of them are amazingly large to be obviously cut with lawnmowers. One even had words cut into it!!
After exploring Waterbury and Stowe on Tuesday, we decided to do a “grand circle” of the Green Mountains. The weather cleared as we went through the day and the sunshine definitely helped the color and our dispositions!! We went to downtown Montpelier, the state capitol. It is only a little bigger than Newberry, but with a huge legislative building with a gold dome!! We did a “drive by shooting there”… ie. We drove by and rolled down the window and did a quick camera shot! We did stop on the little Main Street and explore a craft shop and liquor store (see above! LOL). Dave bought maple liquor.
Next we went to Barre to The Rock of Ages. This is one of the largest granite quarries in the world. The sheer face that they are currently cutting is over 600 feet. They took us out to it on a school bus and our narrator, said they could cut at the current rate and not run out of granite for 4500 years!! What I found most amazing was that only about 30 people work in the quarry and about 50 or so on the production floor. Some of the sculpting and sandblasting was amazing!
By now the sun was really out (sunglasses required!) and we began to wander the lanes and backroads. The find of the day was the Rainbow Café in Marshfield.. The owner/baker was this quirky guy from Brooklyn who made meat pies and pastries to rival those we had in Europe! He was proud of them too. Though we were the only ones in the 6 table café, he had us sit at a “best table of the house because it had the best view”… facing the pastry display. He suggested (demanded! LOL) that we take a route through the Groton State Park and Peacham (he declared there is nothing there, but you have to go there, just like the rest of Vermont!). We decided to follow his advice and the drive proved to be spectacular with waterfalls, a lake, covered bridges and terrific leaf spattered lanes. It was now 6 hours into our “2 hour tour” (to quote Gilligan!)… so we decided to skip Cabot Creamery and find a brewery in Morrisville. The Rock Art Brewery was like the leaves so far… good, maybe great, but not spectacular yet. They had 7 brews and a barley wine that Deb liked but Dave claimed was just a beer. We tasted with a fun couple from Maine who gave us several other breweries and eateries to visit in New Hampshire and Portland. We headed back to Stowe, short of the White Mountain drive, but ready to grill a steak by a campfire.
The next morning we awoke to very light scattered frost on the large grassy field and very poor internet which inspired us to get up and take the White Mountain loop before breaking camp. (Without the Observer what else could we do? LOL) We saw the famous Stowe ski slopes and chalets around Mt. Mansfield along with a Parkway-type drive through Smugglers’ Gulch.
On to New Hampshire… stay tuned.
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