Our next day was all about the drive. You might think our entire holiday is about the drive, but some days are focused on a particularly scenic byway as the “sightseeing” for the day. This was one of those days. We headed out of the hotel and on to drive the Vermont 100 Scenic Byway up through the centre of the state along the Green Mountains. At this time of year with the foliage starting to show some good colour it was lovely. The weather was fairly grey to start with but gradually imprroved and we had bright sunshine here and there. We meandered along the roads, passing pretty white churches, crossing through a covered bridge, driving by some bubbling brooks at the side of the road and at one stage we nearly ran down a small flock of turkeys as they crossed the road! We detoured at one stage along a particularly pretty side road that took us along some sections of gravel.
Eventually we reached the small town of Waterbury where we stopped in to have an ice cream at the Ben & Jerry Factory. In 1978 with a $5 correspondence course in ice cream-making from Penn State and a $12,000 investment ($4,000 of it borrowed), Ben and Jerry open their first ice cream scoop shop in a renovated gas station in Burlington, Vermont. Today Ben & Jerry Ice cream is the best-selling single ice cream brand in the world and out of it’s 2 Vermont factories pumps out nearly 1 million pints a day! The factory in Waterbury is one of the most popular sightseeing locations in Vermont and the factory tours sell out rapidly. I had decided we would pass on the factory tour but was keen to stop in and have a cone. The queue was long but we didn’t have to wait as long as we did for a Hotdog at Hillbilly Hotdogs!
After eating our icecreams we visited the “Flavour Graveyard” which has a headstone for all the flavours that are no longer in production.
After or lunch ( and yes, we ate ice creamfor lunch!) we drove the short distance on to Stowe where we are staying for two nights. Stowe is PACKED. The traffic through the main street is gridlocked and every hotel is charging top dollar. We’re paying a lot of money for a “suite” that is, to be honest a bit tired and has a stuffy smell. But the bed is comfortable and it’s quiet so we’re ok. After checking in we went for a walk back down to the town along the pretty “Stowe Recreation Path” , a really nice walking and cycling track that bypasses the busy roads.
In the town we walked up past the very pretty church just in time to see a bride and groom emerge. It seemed like the whole town stopped to clap and cheer them.
We walked back to the hotel and chose to have dinner at a nice little restaurant across the road called ‘The Bench”, we went early and were told we’d be waiting 30-35 minutes for a table. We’d expected that so settled ourselves outside to wait but received the call to come in after only about ten minutes. We had such a nice meal, a really delicious meatloaf .
This morning we had an easy meal in the hotel and then drove out west towards Burlington, on Lake Champlain, the biggest city in northeast Vermont. Just south of Burlington we planned to visit the Shelburne Museum. The Museum, has 39 exhibition buildings scattered over 45 acres. Some of the buildings have been relocated from other parts of the State as well as from other parts of New England & New York. These buildings include houses, barns, a railroad station and steam train, a circus carousel, a lighthouse, general store and a covered bridge and the steamship Ticonderoga! The museum, founded in 1947, was funded by Electra Havermeyer Webb , an extremely wealthy woman who lived in New York City, but loved this part of Vermont. She was and ardent collector of American folk art. It is an extraordinary collection! We arrived just as they opened and spent the entire morning wandering around the buildings before grabbing lunch in the cafe.
After that we drove back to Stowe via a different route, still very pretty, that took us over the Smugglers Notch area where the road was very narrow and windy. Dinner tonight was back at “The bench” – we had such a nice meal last night we decided to head back again. This time Nachos and Pizza.
