Vermont is fun. Vermont is pretty. Vermont is a pleasant surprise for us. We knew we had some fun stuff planned the end of the week in Vermont, but we never expected to enjoy today as much as we did. When we were in North Dakota two years ago we thought the same thing. Some states just surprise us. After all these trips, we still delight in great days.
We have mentioned many times before how much Riah enjoys hotel breakfasts. It’s not always that he eats a lot, but more that he just loves having free reign, all you can eat, with lots of choices for breakfast. Well our room was located right off the breakfast area. Now that made for lots of fun. I could take a few steps and get great bold coffee. There was fruit right outside the door for Riah. And this was last night! So imagine how much fun The Boy had walking out of our room and seeing all those choices this morning!
He enjoyed his breakfast as always, and the amusing thing is, when we checked out they had bags of “Take Out” breakfasts ready for people in a hurry. Well, don’t you know my little man had to grab one! He was so pleased with himself. It had an apple, muffin, Special K bar, and a water. All but the apple were gone in no time going down the road! He is so funny. I doubt he was even hungry but the novelty of it all pleased him.
As we left Bennington, we saw our first moose crossing sign. I think we have seen 12 small ones since, and two really big ones, and one in the White Mountains Visitors Center. That last one made an awesome picture! We also found a White Mountains teddy bear there named Baxter. Sorry, Bethy, we didn’t buy him. He was cute though. I am realizing now, I didn’t even snap a picture!
Our first stop was The Vermont General Store in Weston, Vt. Maybe you have seen the catalog of their website. It was fun to walk around and see all the hard to find products of yesterday. We also liked finding some unique products like Maple Soda. It was ok I suppose, but pretty sweet. Imagine seltzer water and maple syrup. Now you have no need to try it!
Of course, Riah spotted samples right away. And they weren’t just any samples, they were Vermont cheese samples! Oh you can picture the pure delight on his face. He was just thrilled and ate many little cubes of cheese. We also enjoyed the traditional type general store crackers they had to sample. They were dry, and hard, but fun to taste. We like trying new things.
I bought some cheese, and realized when we got to the car the type I liked, happened to be a brand of a farm we planned to visit later in the day! Oh well, could have saved two bucks by buying it at the actual farm, but I just picked up the variety Riah and I liked the most. It reminded us both of our favorite type of smoked gouda, even though it was a maple smoked cheddar.
Riah picked out some penny candy, which is ten cents there now a days! So, he only got a few pieces. We plan to visit some other candy stores on the trip so we encouraged him to not buy a ton at once.
Other fun things included a pickle jar, coffee candy, seeing the variety of syrup grades, and just looking around the old store and seeing some antiques.
We moved down the road, or I should say, up the road since we were heading north east. We saw a covered bridge or two, but they were not the most picturesque. We also found a few fiberglass painted sheep and I believe at least one llama. No idea if they were town projects or just people like us who like simple silly art!
We crossed a big red covered bridge and headed into the deep woods and found Sugarbrush Farms. It is a farm, so the flies abounded, and Riah seemed bugged by them. Hehehaha. The owner was dipping cheeses in wax, and showed Riah the process. We also sampled some cheeses and syrup at different grades. Obviously, I am a fancy grade kind of girl. Since we already got some Sugarbrush Farms cheese earlier in the day, we didn’t buy anything there. Instead we explored the sugar house and watched a DVD on how they make syrup. I liked seeing the taps and buckets. It takes a lot of sap to make a little bit of syrup even. We learned a few new things, but we had visited a sugar camp once before in Nova Scotia, so we kind of remembered the process. The place is way up a wooded hill, a few miles off the main road, but it was a neat stop and well worth it.
We stopped at Quechee Gorge and walked across the bridge. I hate walking across bridges, but it was an impressive site. Riah likes seeing me pretend to be jittery about such things, so I pretended to be freaked out about walking on the bridge. Why do little boys delight in their elders being scared about stuff like that?!!!
At the New Hampshire line, we had wanted to get a sign picture, but the sign stood atop a hill on an exit ramp. Oh well. Maybe next time. We like getting welcome signs, but if we can’t we don’t worry about it. It’s like, we do take plenty of other pictures!
We snaked our way through New Hampshire. I was glad to find some purple lupines along our way. I am not a flower person, but I do enjoy seeing wildflowers.
The White Mountains Visitors Center was a neat stop. Riah got to feel what real moose fur feels like. He also got to do some interactive exhibits. I mentioned the sign op, and that was my favorite thing. It was cool to find a bench right near it to even set the camera down on. I don’t usually carry the big tripod into museums and such!
The “Kanc” road as it is called was nice, but we saw no moose. It wasn’t really the right time of day for them to be out, but we still looked. It was hazy. It was hot. And, what mountains we could see seemed muted by the haze.
There is one family picture along the route. I had another weird experience with a bug again today right after I took it. When we took the picture, I thought I felt sweat on the top of my head trickle. Well, when I reached up I felt a weird black bug, which I squished since I thought he was a sweat drop. What is it with my head and weird bugs this trip?!!! Anyhow, it was nature close up I guess.
At one point, we stopped at an overlook and when Wayne turned to back out of the parking space, he noticed Riah’s ear was bleeding. Riah was asleep, and had his head off to the one side. So I jumped out and went back to take a look. He was indeed covered with blood, but one thing I have learned as a mother is how very vascular the head is. When he was all cleaned up, it was nothing more than a little nick behind his ear. I think he may have scratched it. His ears get funny with dry skin in that area. But, he’s fine. I am including the pictures that Wayne took when I handed him my camera. They were part of our day, and the end to the story is that Riah is fine.
We didn’t eat lunch today, we just sort of snacked. We had a big breakfast and cheese samples, so we weren’t even really hungry till we hit North Conway. I had found a restaurant named the Muddy Moose online, and we ate supper there. Wayne and I had buffalo burgers, and Riah had a “Mooseburger.” His was really beef, just named the Mooseburger. Our South Dakota buffalo was awesome, and made us wish we were out west!
When we began towards our cabin in Bartlett, the weather just gave out and the sky poured. It was a terrible storm, followed by a terrible experience once we checked in to this nasty place. I could explain about our “cabin,” but I don’t think I will waste the time typing it. If you just want to pretend our day ended with huge smiles on our faces, turn off your computer and check back tomorrow! Oh, and by the way, I am smiling now. Not as big as I could be, but still pretty darn big since I can see a handsome little boy watching TV and grinning at a cartoon. He is perfection to me.