It's long been a tradition of mine, or at least I have desired it to be a tradition, to go on a whirlwind tour of some beautiful part of New England over Columbus Day weekend. This desire first hit me when I visited Bar Harbor one year on a college visit, and I enjoyed the experience so much that I have tried to regain that excitement every year since. This year I got particularly lucky. My anniversary and Columbus Day weekend happen to coincide, leading to one magical trip to one of my absolute favorite states, Vermont.
I've always loved Vermont. While living in New Hampshire my family would take frequent trips across the border, sometimes driving for hours just to go to a breakfast restaurant located in an old maple sugar house. The rustic charm, breathtaking beauty, rolling hills covered in barns, and environmentally conscious nature of the state has endeared it to me. Riding through the scenic byways, it was a pleasure to stop and get out of the car when there were school children helping to press fresh apple cider on the side of the road, or to wander through scenic little towns and sample cheese in the general country stores. In some ways, taking a trip through Vermont is a bit like stepping back in time.
We also got to zip up to Burlington, where we wandered through Church Street Marketplace and got to experience a little bit of the college vibe that comes from a city with three major colleges all located near the downtown. By far my favorite part is the view of Lake Champlain. The amazing combination of mountain landscape, a vast stretch of water, and the buzzing energy of college students is what makes this city so enchanting.
From Burlington we hightailed it over to one of my childhood memories, the Ben and Jerry's factory. Of course, it was the busiest weekend of the year, but it was absolutely worth fighting the crowds to pay homage to what feels like the promised land of ice cream. While waiting for the factory tour, we took a quick hike up to the flavor graveyard where countless people came to either pull a disgusted face at the flavors that quite frankly should never have been made or to mourn over a long lost ice cream love. I, personally, am still saddened by the loss of Bovinity Divinity, a white chocolate and dark chocolate ice cream swirled with white chocolate and dark chocolate cows. If there is an ice cream that gets more Vermont than that, I'm not sure what it is.
I took another trip down memory lane when we stopped at Queechee Gorge. Unfortunately, a lot of my favorite things that used to be around here have closed: the general store is gone, and the corn man, who used to roast fresh corn on a grill and dribble it in butter before handing it to you with a bonus gift of his own clever sayings, is just a distant memory. But the beauty of the place is still spectacular. The picture does it little justice, but looking straight down from the bridge as a passing truck rattles the ground beneath you really reminds you exactly how far down the gorge runs.
No trip through Vermont is complete without a trip to a few scenic towns, and we stopped in Stowe for a couple of hours to explore one of the towns that is frequently described as a classic New England experience. One of my favorite discoveries was this lion that the local blacksmith assembled and put up in the woods behind his shop.
The town was clearly ready for the Democratic debates and was repping a bit of Bernie pride.
Now I'm going to warn you. I adore cows. I think they are absolutely adorable and their big brown eyes are enough to endear me to any of them in a heartbeat. So prepare yourself. You're about to see a lot of them. One of our last stops was Billings Farm, a little museum of a farm that is famous for breeding jersey cows and for being supported by a long lineage of environmentalists. I came to see the cows and found myself sucked into the life of a farmer.
The cow with the black nose was one of the friendliest animals I have ever met. When I stood by the fence, it nuzzled its nose into my stomach and tried licking my shoes, my hands, my shirt even. It wasn't until I returned home that night that I looked down to find a very small hole in my favorite shirt where the cow must have started to nibble on me. I'd be mad, but it's hard to stay mad at that face.
The babies were equally adorable. Billings Farm doesn't keep most of their cows since they will send them to others farms to improve their herds, but it was a pleasure to see the ones that were still around.
Overall, it was an absolutely spectacular weekend. Though the colors in some of the places resembled rust a little bit more than the stereotypically brilliant New England colors (I blame the dry summer), there were still a lot of places where if you blurred your eyes, the forest looked like it was on fire around you. Driving through the countryside was an opportunity to disconnect, breath in the crisp fall air, and to think about a simpler way of life.
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