Thursday, July 8, 2010

A Taste of Vermont...

Last night we shuffled through all the

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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

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Ben and Jerry's.  We signed in for our

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tour and only waited a few minutes.

The first stop was in the

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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

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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

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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

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the location of the

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

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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

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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...

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big barns,

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old churches,

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beautiful green hills, and

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these great old houses.

This back road, took us to the

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Morse Maple Sugar House.

  Mark tried

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several varieties of Vermont Maple Syrup.  He then could choose

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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

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wood shed theater

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

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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

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Cabot Cheese Factory.

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

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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

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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

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through the bridge to the other side.  We stopped to

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enjoy this great little creek and watch

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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...

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5 comments:

  1. Sounds like a great day!!

    Mike & Gerri (happytrails)
    http://freedom2roll.blogspot.com

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  2. I'm hungry now!!! Thanks a lot. LOL

    Enjoyed the tours with you and the beautiful pics. The covered bridge was wonderful. Have fun.

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  3. Glad to hear and see you are having a great time. You make it sound like so much fun I can hardly wait for our Vermont trip next week. Hoping to see you there!! Call me!

    Jenny and Don

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  4. What an enjoyable tour through your eyes! Looking forward to more!

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  5. Nice to see the pics. We'll be spending a week in Burlington with our grand daughter right after the Maine Event. We'll be staying at North Beach Campground right in town. Glad you're enjoying New England, we'll be there soon to join you.

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