Fall in Love with Vermont

 

Vermont

Traveling through Vermont at the height of leaf peeping season was exhilarating. Each day we were there the leaves were changing.  It is difficult to know the exact dates of the colorful leaf season, so I suggest you stay in Vermont for a week so you get to see the color.  We choose the week of October 8th-13^thand we lucked out as far as spectacular colors go. 

        As my husband and I travel, we always try to find the “Scenic By-way” roads.  As it turns out most

every road in Vermont, except the main highways, are designated “Scenic”!  You must pick the backroads and go through all the little towns to get the full flavor of Vermont.

     Here are the highlights of our vacation.

Our first stop was Queechie.  We made advance reservations to eat at the Simon Pearce Restaurant which has fantastic food and is cantilevered over the Queechie River waterfall with a view of a great covered bridge.

Simon Pearce Restaurant over the Queechie River

so many covered bridges in Vermont

 

     Next we hiked down into the Queechie Gorge.  It was fun at the bottom to hop rock to rock and get a view of the Queechie Bridge from the bottom of the Gorge.

top of the Gorge from the bridge

 

bottom of the Gorge

    We spent the night in the little town of Hartland.  The place we stayed was a grandma’s cottage.  It had everything we needed and was so cozy.  We enjoyed a fire outside while watching the sheep in the pasture behind the house.  The night sky was cloudless and starry.

Grandma's cottage in the woods

the sheep that kept us company

 

     The next day we decided to drive 2 hours into New Hampshire to a State Park called The Flume. At this time of year you must have advance timed tickets or you won’t get in. It was a great hike with a staircase built over a cool waterfall chasm. It was worth the drive.

 

     On the way to The Flume we stopped in the small town of Enfield to see all their homemade scarecrows. What wonderful community spirit is shown here.

    The following day we were headed towards Stowe. On the way we had many fun stops. First was Rock of Ages visitor center which was unfortunately closed.  It has a great history tour of the Marble industry in the area. So our first stop was the Barre Cemetery , which shows off its unusual marble tombstones. We walked around the cemetery for about an hour.  It was fascinating.

  Our next stop Burtt’s Apple Orchard.  This apple orchard is so well organized.  They give you buckets and apple picker tools.  We saw families having so much fun. We loved walking up and down the aisles picking apples varietals we have never heard of. As we walked we sipped on apple slushies and ate hot cider doughnuts (these were the best cider doughnuts we had the whole trip).  We were at this place for about 1.5 hours.  

  Our next stop was the Cabot Cheese store.  It was pretty disappointing.  I expected a big store with all things cheese related, but it was a tiny store with a selection of Cabot cheeses, most of which I could get at home.  There was a bakery next door serving beautiful grilled cheese sandwiches and a hardware store serving ice cream, but we had just eaten our lunch so we had to by-pass these treats.

 

   We arrived in Stowe, it was super crowded – traffic was a real problem as we were staying in a downtown apartment (that I would not recommend).  Stowe has a bunch of restaurants, but you need to have reservations this time of year.  We just cooked in our apartment and wandered the town looking in all their cute shops. We wanted to go to the von Trapp family brewery, but it was so crowded with a waiting line, that we chose to just drive around. Stowe is a beautiful town, just too crowded for me.

     The next morning we drove to Little River State Park and hiked the 4.7 mile Stevenson Brook Trail to the History Trail.  The Brook Trail section was fun, crossing little bridges over the creek while fall leaves fell all around us.  This trail had a few steep sections, but we didn’t need our hiking poles. The History part of the trail had many homesteads and small cemeteries.  The state had taken the time to put up kiosks at each homestead along the path, talking about the families who lived there.  This path was fairly steep going down, but again, nothing too difficult. We really loved this trail.

 

     Our next stop was Ben and Jerry’s to get ice cream and see the flavor graveyard.  It was super crowded, about a 45 minute wait for ice cream.  But hey, it was worth the wait. We got flavors we haven’t seen in Texas,  chocolate therapy, coconut seven layer bar, salted caramel blondie, sticky toffee cookie. Our favorite was the coconut seven layer bar!!

 

   Our next day in Stowe, we left town again and drove 45 minutes to Burlington, Vermont.  I had made reservations at Local Motion, a bike rental shop, for 2 electric bikes.  Burlington has an amazing bike path that runs 35 miles along Lake Champlain.  We rode the bike path and then got on the bike ferry which took us out to Hero Island.  We rode out to Snow Farm Vineyard and had a glass of wine. It was a great ride.

 

the bike ferry to Hero Island

The Causeway to the ferry

beautiful scenery along the path

    We then walked around Burlington and had lunch at poke bowl place.  It was a wonderful day. Burlington is a great city.

 

    On the way home we stopped at Cold Hollow Cider mill.  It was really crowded – this is a tour bus stop-but we managed to get a cider tasting.  It was really good hard cider. 

 

   The next day we were on our way to Leicester VT where we rented a little cabin.  This was a great cabin, but a bit close to the owner’s house.  But the owner’s weren’t intrusive and their property was full of flowers and neat landscaping. I would stay here again because it was well placed. 

On  the way to the cabin we stopped and did the  TAM Otter Creek Trail to the Arnold bridge. It was a hike through a field filled with cows- it was interesting- a bit scary, but the cows seemed to be used to it

                                                            

                                                           

    On the next day we headed towards His Majesty’s Fort at Crown Point.  The history of this place was very interesting. It was an excellent day to explore this area. We visited their little museum, which was well worth it.  The ruins of the fort and barracks are being restored. They are doing a great restoration job.  We had our picnic lunch on the southern shore where Lake Champlain meets Lake George.

picnic at Crown Point

Barracks ruins at Crown Point

Crown Point memorial

  

Our last stop that day was at the fantastic Robert Frost Interpretive Trail.  This an ADA compliant trail.  All along the trail are posts that contain Robert Frost poems. Robert Frost was from this area..

 

These are just some of the places we stopped.  But I must say that the drives along the backroads were so rewarding.  Driving slowly through the falling yellow, reds and oranges is and amazing experience.

 

Oh and one more thing, you must have a maple creamie before you leave Vermont!