We are in Waterbury, Vermont. Ben and Jerry's is about a mile or two up the road from us, so that's first on the agenda for tomorrow. But as you can imagine, a seven year old is anxious for tomorrow to get here because of that fact!
We sort of slept in a little this morning. We left the hotel at about 9:30, which is really late for us. Most days we are on the road by 8:00 at the latest. But our first stop was close, so we lingered at the hotel longer than normal.
We stopped at a cool shop downtown St. Johnsbury, because we saw moose antlers for sale on the side walk. They also had some cool mounted moose heads. If we had a spare $2500-3000, we would definately have bought one! The interesting thing was, they were mounted on a realistic level for the height for an adult male moose. So, when you see Riah standing under it in the picture, realize that it would be about that tall for real had it not been killed and stuffed! On down the road we headed.
Maple Grove Farms is the reason we even stopped in St. Johsbury, Vermont, let alone stayed there overnight. They make these cute little maple candies you see at Cracker Barrel, in addition to supplying Cracker Barrel and many other places and people with high quality maple syrup. My mom really likes those maple candies, so I always think of her when I eat one. Mom, I ate an extra sample of the 100% pure maple ones for you today! The paler color ones are half maple, have cane syrup. But the darker ones are pure maple. We all agreed the pure maple ones were best. But, once more, a touch of maple is plenty for us. None of us are big sweet tooths, and the minute we finished sampling, we headed for water. We were the only people on our tour, so essentially it was like getting a private tour, which is always more fun for us! I was so anxious to pose beside the giant maple syrup tin. There are other maple places of course, but Maple Grove was a must stop for us since I knew the giant tin was there!
Vermont is known for a few things. Yes, maple syrup is one, and cheese is another. Actually, many different dairy products really. Cabot Creamery started a long time ago as a co-op of local farmers who took out second morgages on their farms just to try to make a better life for their family. It was a big risk, because once they bought the creamery with their joint funds, they still had no guarrantee that anyone would even buy their products. But, people did. And to this day it's still a co-op of local farmers. But it has of course grown both in number and in production capacity. It has won awards the world over. We eagerly sampled cubes while we waited for our tour to start. Riah is so funny when sampling. He's so classy about it, but truth be told, despite his manners, when it comes to something like cheese he still eats a lot. I just figure since he's being polite and has manners, no one much notices him. Especially since it was just cheese. Sometimes with things like say, ummmm, maple candy we actually have to cut him off!
They were making sour cream on one side of the factory, cheddar cheese on the other side. The curds and whey were still being separated, and it did promt me to buy some cheese curds on my way back through the gift shop. I wish we could bring you all home lots of food samples, but we are really trying to rein in the food purchases since it's summer and hot and we have a full cooler just with water bottles. So, we have bought a few little things to eat as we go. Our lunches have been Vermont cheese and crackers for a few days now! I think Wayne is being nice letting Riah and I get away with that. (Riah and I being the cheese lovers!)
Next we headed south a little to Rock of Ages granite quarry. We had every intention of touring the actual quarry, but we arrived right after a huge tour bus full of grad students. It would be atleast another hour before the next tour because of the group, so we opted to move on. We did find the huge granite chunks interesting, but the visitor center seemed to mostly revolve around burial stones and markers, a subject I found curious, but also a tad morbid. Riah liked the interactive exhibits, and actually found a grave marker via their computer inventory which was a full size car carved out of granite. I was amused, but once more, the morbidity of it all made me prompt him to move on! He bought some core samples which show the different colors and variations, and they we fun to see. Granite is a neat thing, but wouldn't it be better in life to erect monuments to ourselves rather than letting others do it in death? I am thinking maybe I should save up for a giant granite camera...
Have you ever driven over a floating bridge? Well, we have as of today. I know some cities have huge floating bridges of sorts, designed by educated engineers, but that was not quite the type of bridge we sought out today. The pictures will show you, it is wood, and it does sink as you drive across. It wasn't as scary as I thought it might be. Riah loved it, so he and Wayne drove back across, then back to me. I took pictures. Maybe on my granite monument to myself I will have them engrave a bridge ;) reflecting in the camera lens.
I like covered bridges also, but the few we have found haven't been the most beautiful I have ever seen. We do have some nice ones even in our home county, but the main difference is, most of the ones we saw up here are still in use. There are a lot of them in Vermont and New Hampshire, that is for sure.
After we checked into our hotel, we set out to find something for supper. We decided to stop at Cold Hollow Cider Mill tonight rather than tomorrow. It was a quick stop, we got a few cider donuts and Riah got a free cider popsicle.
The place we went for supper was in Stowe, a town which kind of surprised me. I don't know what I was picturing, but it wasn't like the ski towns we have been to out west. I was looking forward to some cute little shops and stuff, but we just didn't find that. Most of the restaurants were just as expensive as we expected (ski town + dining guide + past experiences ). So, we found a 1950's Malt Shop type place just thinking we would settle for a good burger. The guys liked theirs, but it was really greasy by my standards.
Our hotel has a covered bridge on it's property, and also a fort type play area. Riah liked climbing on it and playing outside for awhile.
Well, tomorrow is ice cream and other treasures. Check back folks.