Wood Bowls, Apples, Ice Cream and Lots of Other Stuff...

Well, today was an action packed day. We saw a good portion of the state of Vermont (and a little bit of New Hampshire)...unfortunately our time was mainly spent in the central and northern parts of Vermont where the colors have already turned and most of the leaves have fallen. On Thursday, we will be heading down south in search of some more color. Today was more about taking care of some of the items we had researched prior to arriving that we wanted to see.

The day started off by having a communal breakfast at the B&B (October County Inn) that we are staying at. For those of you who know us well, you know that Rosie and I are not big fans of the communal living/eating concept...we pretty much like to be anti-social and hang out on our own and not interact with other people. The other people we ate with were pretty mellow...a couple of couples from Florida and one from Pismo Beach. We had pleasant conversations while having our coffee, maple scones, scrambled eggs and bacon. As soon as it was socially acceptable, Rosie and I bolted from breakfast to get ready to depart. So we hopped into our less than clean, white Saturn Vue and headed up towards Killington.

Our first stop was a mecca for Rosie. Maybe not as much of a mecca as Deruta, Italy was for her dishes, but a mecca none-the-less. A little background here...about 10 years ago, Rosie and I went over to a dinner at our friend Nick Enthoven's parents' house. At dinner, Mrs. Enthoven brought out a huge, wooden salad bowl. Rosie went ga-ga over the bowl and tasked me with getting her one. All I had to go off of, was that it was made in Vermont. After a lot of internet research, I was finally about to track down the place that made large, wooden bowls out of one piece of wood and I purchased one for Rosie for Christmas or her birthday. She was very happy. Today we stopped at the mill where these bowls are made. The place is called the Bowl Mill and it is in Granville, VT. This place gave factory tours until April 2008 but now they do not offer tours but they have a store on location. Rosie looked at many, many bowls...some in the store and some in the shed behind the store. We were there for about an hour. Rosie increased her bowl collection as a result of our visit. When we were getting ready to leave, I asked them if they stopped giving factory tools because of liability issues. The woman said it was not because of liability but because they shut down the mill for good in April...they are just selling off the rest of the inventory and then closing it all up. This was not happy news for Rosie. Yeah, very upsetting!

After leaving Granville, we stopped at the country store in Warren. This store was recommended by our host Edie at the OCI. The store was the quintessential country store...it had a ton of random items...a town's one-stop shop (think Wal-mart in about 1/1000 the space). We bought a couple of sandwiches (Smoked salmon with capers and cream cheese sandwich and a roast beef with wasabi mayo) and drinks and sat outside on the picnic benches overlooking the small creek and waterfall that runs past the store. It was very nice...it was about 60 degrees and sunny. The food was good too.

After lunch we drove up through Waterbury and into Waterbury Center...home of the Ben & Jerry's factory. When we got there, it was quite crowded as two big tour buses had arrived prior to us. We purchased a couple of tickets for the tour that started in 15 minutes and rustled our way through the over-priced gift shop. We eventually went on the 30 minute tour and did not learn much other than everyone who works at B&J calls the founders Ben and Jerry, "the boys" (maybe it is just me that finds it odd that 50+ year old men are called boys) and that all Ben & Jerry's employees must get unlimited ice cream as part of their compensation package...must be similar to the cigarette companies that use to give all employees a carton of smokes each week. I have dubbed our tour of Ben & Jerry's as the 50/50 tour. The name comes from the fact that Rosie and I were about 50% of the average age and the average weight of the tourists. If you ever want to see yourself as young and thin...I highly recommend touring the Ben & Jerry's factory. Another sad fact about the B&J, they don't offer all their flavors for sale at their store. That is really lame! How can you not have all the flavors at the factory? We settled for a banana split with Cherry Garcia, Cake Batter, and Phish Food. Rosie was very disappointed. After our sugar high, we went to visit the flavor grave yard. It was funny.

After leaving, we proceeded up the road to the Cold Hollow Cider Mill. This place is a working apple mill making all types of apple products from ciders to cider donuts to apple butter and lots of other apple-based stuff. Everything we sampled there was delicious. The fresh, cold apple cider was exceptionally good. We also got to see how the cider was pressed. They basically grind the apples and then using a tube, they dispensed what looked like apple pooh onto a slab of cloth. They keep stacking it until it is pretty high and then they use a big press to squeeze out all the juice. Feeling good about our newfound slimness, Rosie decided to purchase an entire apple pie while I decided to try an apple cider doughnut. The doughnut was good (maybe not a good as a plain cake doughnut at Chuck's Doughnuts on Woodside Road), but still good. We are eating the apple pie as I type this blog and it is good too (maybe not as good as Nancy's apple pie, but still good). Update: Rosie says her piece pie is a little "mushy".

After leaving the cider mill, we stopped by the factory store for a brand of Vermont cheese called Cabot. This was not the production facility but a store. While we were browsing around, two buses pulled up with our friends from the 50/50 tour lines. At this point, we beat a hasty retreat from the free cheese samples...I could see the headlines in the local paper..."honeymoon couple trampled in a stampede for free cheese". After speeding out of the parking lot, we headed back down south via the main state highway. Things were going great until we came across a traffic jam across both lanes of the freeway heading in our direction. About a half-mile before the accident there was a myriad of signs and flashing lights and more signs signally that there was an accident ahead. After about 20 minutes of inching forward, we finally got past the fender-bender. My take is that when there is an accident in Vermont, it is a big deal and all the stops are pulled out. I figure this was probably the first time the Vermont highway patrol was able to bust out some of these signs and lights...so it was a big to do. On a side-note, most drivers in Vermont seem very courteous and nice...they only use the left lane to pass and then get back in the right lane. Everything on the roads is about 75% of California pace. One concept many of the towns in Vermont seem to have a hard time mastering is traffic control. IMO, there are way too many left-turn lights for not enough cars needing to go in that direction and there are way too many no right-turn on a red light. In the end, most of the traffic control seems very inefficient.

We then drove down to Quechee Gorge but it was getting dark so we did not get out to explore it. We will do that Thursday or Friday AM. Since we had eaten dinner in Woodstock the night previous, we decided to make a run for the border and drive the 10 miles to Hanover, NH for dinner. Our logic was that a college town must have a lot of good, cheap places to eat. We drove into Hanover, blinked and then were driving out of town. We made a u-turn, drove around the Dartmouth campus and then parked on the main street and found a pizza parlor. The campus looked really nice and scholastic. The buildings were very stately and prim and proper. The entire town seems to only be there to support the college. The pizza was mediocre, the toppings were good...the crust, not so good. Rosie is wondering how they managed to burn the crust but still make it soggy...perplexing.

Now, we are back at the B&B planning our day for tomorrow. Right now there is a 60% chance of rain tomorrow, but that should not impact us too much. Potential items on tomorrow's agenda are: Calvin Coolidge historical site, Billings Farm, Sugarbush Farm, Quechee Gorge, another bowl store, and another country store or two. We will play it by ear.

Hope all is well with everyone. Take care.

Rick and Rosie