It is never an official Ammon Family road trip until we have breakfast at a Cracker Barrel. Today we skipped the hotel breakfast of not egg "eggs" and headed to a nearby Cracker Barrel. We were not disappointed. Breakfast was much better than the hotel breakfasts we had endured the past few mornings. Our waitress was a peach. Lauralee knew what she wanted but not quite what it was called on the menu. The waitress said "no worries, you tell me what you want and I will finagle it in and get you what you want". She was a great start to our day. For me the Wild Maine Blueberry Pancakes are a treat to enjoy once or twice a year.
We headed North along the Hudson River (it is not really a river), then crossing it and heading for Vermont
. Soon we were into rolling hills with bare trees and farm land in between the hills. The roads a rarely straight and often bumpy. We begin to see Vermont Maple Gifts before we even reach the state line. Eventually we see the "Entering Vermont" sign blur past us. We come over a hill and drop down into a town, seeing a tall monument that draws us off our Google Maps route.
The monument is the Bennington Battle Monument. There was a supply depot in Bennington that the British thought they could capture. The men of Bennington fought off the British and saved the supplies. The monument was closed but is open in season (more on that later). As we continued back on your route we happened upon another pleasant surprise. As we drove past Hemming's Motor News caught my eye and I made a quick u-turn. I did not realize they are located in Bennington, Vermont. They have a gas station, coffee shop and souvenir shop filled with automobile shirts, model cars, signs, license plates, books and more
. I bought a few old license plates from the states we had visited on this trip as souvenirs to hang on my garage wall.
Back on the windy, bumpy roads with snow piled on the sides. Winter has only recently left Vermont. Lakes are still covered with ice, snow dusts the top of the nearby mountains and ski hills are just now shutting down for the season. We pass through numerous little towns with inns that are shut down for the season. Most of the hills are covered in maple trees that a clear of their leaves and a few scattered pine trees. We pass the President Coolidge State Historical Site, also closed for the season.
We passed through Woodstock which is a historic town of high end shops, restaurants and inns. It is beautiful town that we will return to later to paruse. We continue a few more miles to Quechee to enjoy a wonderful lunch at Simon Pearce. Simon Pearce is a famous hand blown glass company based here in Vermont
. They have a great restaurant overlooking the Ottauquechee River with a glass blowing factory in the lower level. Oh, they also have a store filled with glass for sale too. Lauralee found the store.
Our next adventure - time to see a real maple syrup farm. We follow the signs to Sugar Bush Farms over a few muddy cow paths, up and down hills hoping we will make back over these roads. We reached our destination and learned about Vermont's 5th season - mud season. We were treated to samples of maple syrups and Vermont cheeses. We also learned about the maple syrup process. The trees have a window of about 5-7 weeks during which they can be tapped and sapped. Just our luck we are here during sap season. We can see the tin pales hanging from some of the trees and newer polly tubing draped between other maple trees. It takes 40 gallons of sap to make a single gallon of maple syrup. The grade of maple syrups relates to when the sap was harvested from the trees
. Early, mid, late, and last. The early is very mild, the mid and late are stronger and the last is the strongest of all. In order for the sap to flow the trees need to freeze at night and then thaw during the day. That is why they only have 5-7 weeks that the weather allows for the sap to flow. The sap flows like water and is clear like water. We bought some syrup and cheese and set out on the muddy cow paths again.
We passed some huge homes and horse barns along the way to Woodstock. We also passed the Marsh-Billing-Rockeller National Historic Park. It too was closed for the season. It is a working farm that shows the history of Vermont Farming. In Woodstock we browsed a few shops (high dollar) and then ventured into the Woodstock Inn & Resort. A 4 diamond resort with it's own golf course, racquet club and ski hill. The restaurants looked wonderful, but a little too formal for our casual tourist attire.
Time to head for our hotel in White River Junction, just 15 minutes down the windy road
. Oh, along the way today we have passed several covered bridged and crossed a couple too.
We find an OK restaurant for dinner in downtown White River Junction. It seems to be a real hot spot for old hippies and college professors. If feel out of place with my short hair and Chrysler minivan. All the other guys have long white hair in a pony tail, beards, and are driving a bumper sticker laden Subaru or Volvo. Across the Connecticut River is New Hampshire and the towns of Hanover, Lebanon, and West Lebanon. Hanover is home to Dartmouth College.
Vermont has been very interesting. Definitely a place we would like to explore some more. About the seasons. I did mention that Vermont has the 5th season - mud season. Talking with locals in Woodstock they said that between the end of ski season (usually early March) until the first of July it is very slow. Many of the tourist sights are open from Memorial Day through the end of the fall colors.
While we missed many of the sights due to being "out of season", and we did not see any fall colors (also out of season), we did get to be in Vermont during the short "sap season" and see the old pales and new tubbing hanging from the trees collecting maple sap.
Tomorrow is our last day of driving. Boston here we come.
Vermont
Wednesday, April 09, 2014
Hartford, Vermont, United States
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