May 2023
This was my third trip to Vermont. A beautiful state and has that crunchy granola feel I love, and of course a gun store as you enter. The food is wonderful and we learned on a cider donut with maple creemee (soft serve ice cream, a must to pair with the otherwise bland donut) stop that Vermont is one of the few states that does not allow billboards. I met up with my friend Natalie whom I met camping in Colorado. It was fun to have a travel companion and Natalie is one of those warm spirits you just want to be around. Two great experiences were catching up with some friends who own two restaurants downtown (and they fed us well!) and a mishap during our Ben & Jerry’s factory tour in nearby Waterbury; remember the chocolate conveyor belt scene from I Love Lucy – well, a version of that happened on our tour where some of the lids were not making it onto the pints and the poor sorter was frantically trying to grab each lidless pint off the belt before it dropped upside down into the finished product bin. He could not keep up so ice cream was spilling onto the belt and the floor and he was leaning onto the belt grabbing and throwing pints toward the nearest trash can as fast as he could. So sad we were not allowed to film or take photos in that area!
BURLINGTON. Really a great city and vibe with a nice downtown with lots of food, shopping and coffee options. Natalie was kind enough to let me stay with her at Green Mountain Suites Hotel where she booked a small one bedroom a couple of miles from downtown. The hotel had a small workout room, a good breakfast and a mid-week nightly happy hour. I spent both my evenings at E.B. Strongs Steakhouse owned by Tim and Kristen and they were more than gracious including feeding Natalie and I. The food is fantastic (the filet and truffle fries especially) and they have a solid wine list as well as excellent bartenders and a fun bar. They also own Halvorson’s a couple of doors down where I was to meet them the next night for some live music but it was raining so anything outdoor was off the agenda. Other than downtown and the surrounds, Burlington has a budding arts district in the industrial area I visited but it is not quite there yet.
STOWE. Cute mountain town with lots of shopping, hiking and dining and in the winter, skiing. I hiked here in the past during fall foliage which was beautiful. Natalie and I drove the area through the on and off again rain and went through Smuggler’s Notch which was this really cool narrow winding road through boulders where apparently smugglers used to move supplies to and from Canada during the War of 1812 and the boulders provided good hiding. Tim said that occasionally a long truck will go through thinking it is a shortcut and get stuck and have to break apart the truck to get out. It was other planet like and not possible to get an accurate photo especially as there is no place to pull over and I had cars behind me.
MONTPELIER. This is the capital of Vermont and is worth a stop. I mostly walked around the downtown and the capital building.
