A Taste of Vermont...

Last night we shuffled through all the

Vermont brochures and made a plan for today.

About mid-morning, with maps and cameras, we headed north on I-89.  And, as I figured...our first stop was

Ben and Jerry's.  We signed in for our

tour and only waited a few minutes.

The first stop was in the

Cow Over The Moon theater.  Here, we learned all about the business.  Ben and Jerry were childhood friends and after college they decided to start a business together and ice cream was the choice.  After taking a $5 correspondence course, they started the business...and I guess the rest is history!

After our movie, we toured the factory...sorry, no photos allowed!

From the factory, we entered the tasting room

for a sample of today's flavor.  And, that concluded our trip.  But, if that tiny little sample was not enough, you could go outside to the

snack bar and get as much ice cream as you wanted to pay for.

Fun tour, good ice cream, but this Texas girl thinks Blue Bell just can't be beat!

Now, with that stop off the list, we headed on north to the town of Burlington.  We found a place to park and walked a couple of blocks to

the location of the

Church Street Marketplace.  We walked and shopped until we decided lunch was in order.  We chose this

great little tavern and enjoyed a lunch of fish and chips.

After a drive down by the water front of Lake Champlain where I found this

little lighthouse by the Coast Guard station, we decided to head back South.

At Montpelier, we took a back road...and on our drive, we saw...

big barns,

old churches,

beautiful green hills, and

these great old houses.

This back road, took us to the

Morse Maple Sugar House.

  Mark tried

several varieties of Vermont Maple Syrup.  He then could choose

the correct flavor and the amount you want.  He chose the Grade A, Medium Amber in the 16 oz. bottle for a mere $12.85.  The gallon jug sold for $56.00.

He better use it sparingly. LOL

While Mark was deciding on the syrup, I was trying to decide on which waffle mix I wanted...it didn't take me long to decide on Wild Cranberry.

After shopping in the store, we took in a movie at the

wood shed theater

where we learned about the process of making syrup.  When I learned  this

is the way it looks in the winter, and  you have to start tapping the trees in February...guess that price wasn't too bad after all.

With our purchases in hand, we had one more tour for the day, and that took us to the

Cabot Cheese Factory.

We had a great little tour here and got to sample several varieties of cheese.  Mark finally decided on

this Seriously Sharp Cheddar.

Okay...no more food tours for today.  We laughed that we missed the Lake Champlain Chocolate Factory in Burlington.  And, no, we aren't going back.

On our way back to the campground, we saw our first

Vermont covered bridge.  This one was built in 1890, but was reconstructed several years ago, using as much of the original materials as they could.

We walked

through the bridge to the other side.  We stopped to

enjoy this great little creek and watch

this little guy hard at work.

We were back at the campground in plenty of time to sit out for a little while and then take an evening walk.

Once again we are shuffling through those brochures and making a new plan for tomorrow....in the meantime...