Vermont 2016

September 8, 2016

Went to see the Ethan Allen home, but it was closed, walked around the area, took some pics and then decided to go to downtown Burlington.  This is a quaint little area, so we decided to explore.  Burlington is the largest city in VT at 40,000, city more like Havasu than large city in most states!   Walked up and down Church street, main shopping area in town and close to the VT college.  

Weather is nice but rain is supposed to come so we headed home to close up the coach.   Tomorrow we'll head to Malone, NY where my girlfriend Marilyn Lusk and her husband Jim spend the summers.

September 7, 2016

Took a cruise of Lake Champlain on the Ethan Allen Boat today.   It's a narrated cruise, telling you the history of the lake, some of the incidents that have occurred, famous people that have sailed it and of course the battles that have occurred in or near Burlington, VT.   

The cruise took about 1 1/2 hrs, which was a wonderful way to spend the after noon on a hot muggy afternoon.   It's about 90 today and humidity is high, although it's supposed to cool down for the weekend.

September 6, 2016

Laundry is our first chore today, once we completed that task, it was off to see the VT capital.   This is the smallest capital in the USA, however it's beautiful.   Even though it's small, it has very interesting architecture, paintings and statues. 

Once we finished our tour, we headed back to the coach, packed it up and then headed to the town of Waterbury, where we found a place at a park to park the coach and then we took to truck to see the Ben & Jerry Ice Cream factory.   Learned about the history and how the two best friends created this ice cream company and how's it's expanded to a worldwide corporation.   It's no longer owned by the two friends but they still operate it after negiating that they'd they still have all say in the flavors, etc.   Obviously the new management agreed to their terms and it's grown in leaps and bounds since the purchase.

After the tour, we got a sample of the flavor of the day: Milk and Cookies, huge sample that was excellent.  The graveyard of the retired flavors was our next stop, fun to see funny headstones. 

The Von Trapp Family lodge was our next destination.  This family migrated from Austria to the USA in then1940's and earned money by holding performance where they sang.   Also operated a farm, that today is still in operation but is mostly a world renowned ski resort.   Because of their signing, the musical Sound of Music was created and later the movie was produced.   Very interesting to learn about them and of course see the views from their lodge.

Drove back to the coach and headed to Burlington, VT Elks Lodge, where we'll spend 2-3 days looking at this area.


September 5, 2016

Montpieler, VT is the capital of VT and our next destination.   We arrived at around noon, had terrible fog on the route up.   We traveled I-89, beautiful drive for what we could see.

Got the Montpieler Elks lodge and decided we'd play golf.  Tee'd off at 10:15 with a local couple (Mike & Lisa), great to have locals since they know all the in's and out's of the course.

Afterwards we joined them for cocktails and spent time getting to know them.


September 4, 2016

Simon Pierce Glass

The Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Park is in Woodstock, VT, so that was our destination for today.  

Queechee Gorge

While driving there, we first stopped at the Quechee Gorge.   It's supposed to be the Grand Canyon of the East, believe me, it's NOTHING like to the Grand Canyon.   However it is a nice gorge.   We walked the 1/2 mile to the bottom to capture a pic of the bridge plus walked up to the bridge to get the view looking down river.

Queechee Covered Bridge

On the drive to NP, we found two covered bridges, of which we drove across one.   We also stopped at Simon Pierce glass studio in Quechee, he's a world renowned glass blower, where they make high end glassware.  We watched them make sugar bowls today.   A finished one cost $55.  


The National Park is attached to the Billings-Marsh Farm, still a running cattle farm, however we elected to spend our time at the National Park.   We watched a 25 minute film on the history of the three owners, of which George Perkins Marsh was the first.   His family bought the farm when we  was very young and he grew up there learning about the conservation of plants, in particular trees.   He was sent to Europe for his work and while there his brother sold the farm to Fredrick Marsh 1869.



Mr. Marsh was extremely concerned how the state had allowed much of the forest to be logged and now the forest was 90% gone, hence he created reforestation and conservation, plus the idea of a National Park was created.   He died in 1890 but his wife Julia and his three daughters continued with his vision of the farm.    In the 1950's, Julia's granddaughter Mary, married Lawrence Rockefeller, whom continued to run the farm.  In 1992 Lawrence and Mary gave the home to the National Park and it opened to the public in 1998.

Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller NP

We took the miniature guided tour of the main house.  You get to see most of the first floor and second floors, but nothing of the third floor.   The regular tour gives you more in depth but we did not want to wait the two ours to get the tour.   Our guide explained the rooms and we saw 85% of the house, which is amazing for that it was built in 1835 or so.



We then went Sugarbush Farms, learned about the maple syrup business, had samples and bought a few things.



Woodstock was our last stop, walked around town, look in the shops and caught a late lunch.