What We Almost Missed

We woke this morning to a steady rain.  Mark messed around for a little while with our Sirius Radio, which has decided to work or not.  Some times is works just fine and other times, it prompts...antenna error.  Of course, we all know that is driving him nuts.

In the meantime, I had just about decided that today we would stay in.  In fact, I even posted on Facebook that I thought we would just hang out at the motor home today.

However, by 11:30 or so, he was frustrated with the radio, I was frustrated with him, and the rain had stopped.  So, we decided to head out and take a trip South

down I-87 to the little town of Quechee.  Here, we found the

Visitor Center.  After getting a little information, we walked down the street to the

pedestrian walkway overlooking the

Quechee Gorge.  The Ottauquechee River is a river, about 40 miles long in eastern Vermont. It is a tributary of the Connecticut River, which flows to Long Island Sound.

From the

bridge, we took

the walking trail down to

the bottom of the gorge.

The

rock formation at the bottom of the gorge floor was very jagged and tricky to walk on.

The walk back to the top reminded me of the

rain forest in Oregon.

About half way up, we decided to take the

scenic trail.  No bread crumbs, but there were these nice blue marks on the trees marking the way.

Soon, we reached

the back side of the Visitor Center.  I was in awe of all the

beautiful

flowers that were blooming and glistening after the morning rains.

From

Quechee, we traveled on to the town of

Taftsville.  Through the bridge and down a

back road, we found the

Sugar Bush Farm.  We visited with one of the

locals who directed us to the

sugar house where the

maple syrup is made.

Here are a few

facts about the farm.

We also visited the farm store where we purchased some sugar free strawberry/rhubarb jelly.

With our purchases in hand, we headed on to the next destination.  We would have never made it without the

great directions posted on the barn at the fork in the road.

As we approached Woodstock we saw yet another

great covered bridge.

Our purpose in Woodstock was to find the

Marsh Billings Rockefeller National Park, which by the way is Vermont's only National Park.   I got my park stamp and we walked around the grounds admiring the

carriage house and

home.  There is quite a bit of Vermont history in this park.  Also, to note, the Appalachian Trail runs through here as well.  We were too late to get to do any hiking in the park today.

Back down the road, we stopped at the

Woodstock Farmer's Market.  We got some great

fruits and veggies.  However, it took lots of will power

to leave the pie at the market.

Since we had to go back through Taftsville, I wanted to make a stop at

Simon Pearce Glass to watch the

glass blowers.  What a

talent these two young men have.

The pieces were all beautiful, but I didn't see a single

piece that I thought would survive life in the motor home.

We also walked out on the back deck of store to get one last look at the

covered bridge and waterfall we had driven over to get to the shop.

We also made a stop at the

Country Store where we took a

quick look around.

Again, another great day in Vermont...and just think what we would have

missed if we had stayed home today.