Not All Who Wander Are Lost...

We had a lazy morning, enjoying a breakfast of cranberry waffles topped with the Vermont Maple Syrup we purchased yesterday.  Yummy!

  After which, we got our plan for the day together and started off on our journey.

Again, this morning we headed North.  This time to the little town of Barre, home of the

Rock of Ages Granite Quarries.  We located the

visitor center and found that we were just in time to board the next

tour bus.

We drove from the factory out to the

quarries.  They were not working this week due to the heat.  We certainly understand, but were disappointed that we did not get to see the process of extracting the granite.  Our guide told us that this quarry has been digging in this spot for about 60 years and that there was enough granite here to last for another 2,000 years.  Sounds like job security.

These are some of the

granite benches that have been extracted.

This photo was taken from the movie we watched, shows how they

lift it from the quarry.  The benches are 50' long, 20' wide, and 10' thick, and weighs several tons.

Once we were back to the factory, which was also closed for this week, we were able to take a self guided tour.  We saw

were the artisans take pieces of the granite and turn them into statues, monuments, and

tombstones.  Thus, the name...Rock of Ages.

I also had the opportunity to

sandblast my own granite

Vermont souvenir.

After the tour, we drove out to the Hope Cemetery.  We wandered around and saw some very unusual headstones that have been done over the years by the artisans from Rock of Ages Factory.

  There were

soccer balls,

initials,

airplanes,

race cars, and

murals.

Amazing talent.

From here, we decided to wander the

back roads looking for

covered bridges.  This one, was built in 1872 as the Northfield Upper River Bridge.  It was located just inside the town of

Northfield...established in 1781.

Wandering down this

back road, we found

a smaller back road that took us to a

floating bridge, that no longer floats.  The first bridge was constructed in 1820.  This one was the seventh bridge...now closed!

These were some of the houses and buildings sitting

  right on the river banks.

Back to our wanderings...we found

this old church,

an old general store,

a beautiful Vermont farm,

another covered bridge...and

a back road that took us to a dead end.  We had to back out of this one.

We saw

little streams,

silly road signs, and

cows that had the right of way.

Wander we did, but lost we were not...what another great day in

Green Mountain State of Vermont!