Flurry of activity

We’d had rain and were clouded in for a few days. While it was fine for factory tours and cleared up long enough for us to walk in towns and such, it wasn't at all conducive to drive up to the top of Mount Mansfield, the highest peak in Vermont and part of the Stowe Resort. Getting a break in the weather this morning, we drove up the Stowe Auto Toll Road to hike the remaining 600 feet up to the nearly 4,400 foot peak.

The 4 ½ mile drive is up the original 1800’s era carriage road that brought wealthy patrons up to the mountain top accommodations. While the accommodations no longer exist at the top, the original carriage road does, and winds its way through all the existing black diamond and double black diamond runs. Unlike the Western ski resorts we are more familiar with that have huge movable snow making cannons with immense fans and maybe 3 foot diameter openings, here they just have a long line of permanently mounted snow making nozzles that look like a string of street lamps. It appears they would blanket the entire slope with a fine drizzle of newly made snow when operating.

The pooch came with us on our final hike to the summit – maybe not our best decision – it was 37 degrees and the wind about knocked you down, and it was mostly rocky terrain with huge puddles from the rain – but Niko still had a great time – he doesn't get to hike with us too much these days. And the Woman was in ecstasy – she had been reading about The Long Trail – the oldest long distance trail in the US – built by the Green Mountain Club between 1910 and 1930, it is a 272 mile trail that runs the length of Vermont from the Massachusetts state line to the Canadian border. Well, the 1.3 mile section of trail from the visitor center to the peak is a section of The Long Trail, so she got to hike part of that as well!

If we could keep from getting blown off the mountain, the views were spectacular. From a rocky overlook about mid-way up we could see for miles. While the face of Stowe ski slopes face East, being on the crest, we could see in all directions. We saw the complete Lake Champlain basin, actually straining to see both its Northern and Southern reaches. We could also see Burlington where we had been the day before. Lots accomplished, and a happy pup to boot.

I guess if you happen to be driving down the road with a dead horse in the back of your vehicle, this sign would come in useful.

It turned out Montpelier, the capitol of Vermont, was only a short distance away. Being lunch time, we actually combined two activities to a good result. We hit Fresh Track Farms, a winery only about 4 miles from the capitol building. We got to share a nice glass of their yummy Cabernet with our picnic, and then get a sampling of all their eight wines they produce here. All their wines are made from grapes grown on their property here, except for their apple wine which still comes from locally grown Vermont apples. It was an especially nice lunch, and we picked up a little after dinner treat for the upcoming Thanksgiving feast.

Our visit to the capitol was fun. We learned that the capitol building was built in 1859, and is in much the identical condition it was the day it was opened – nearly all states have either replaced their capitol buildings or expanded them, but Vermont has not. Because of that, Vermont’s capitol building is the oldest in the US that is still operating as it was on the date it was built.

Because of that, the furniture has never been replaced. When you enter either the Senate or the House Chambers, what you see is the original 1859 furniture as it was the day the building was opened. Sure, some of the upholstery has been repaired as needed, but the desks and chairs and podiums and chandeliers are all from 1859. In the House chamber there are a row of 15 chairs on either side of and behind the podium – there are 30 senators in Vermont, so when there is a joint session for some reason, the senators join the house in these chairs. The interesting part is that each set of 15 is a single piece of furniture, each seat sharing the arm between them – and again all from 1859.

We also learned that Vermont has no state office building. And other than the governor and attorney general and their staffs, there are no state offices in the capitol building. So, the desk tops in each chamber open, and that serves as the official state office for each senator or representative, at least for as long as they hold the seat. Not much formality here!

We learned that two of Vermont’s natives have occupied the White House, but neither of them was elected when they took occupancy. Calvin Coolidge was the vice president under Warren G. Harding, and assumed the presidency when Harding suddenly died in office. He was at home, so his father, a notary public who was used to attesting to legal transactions on behalf of the government, administered the oath of office. Later, Congress would object to his presidency because he was not administered the oath of office by a Supreme Court Justice – Coolidge later corrected that and settled down the Congress. But apparently when asked why he thought that he was qualified to administer the oath of office, Coolidge's father said "Nobody ever told me I couldn't." Chester A. Arthur assumed the oval office when James A. Garfield was assassinated. Finally, we learned that the black marble squares in the flooring of the capitol was quarried from believed to be over a million years old – there are even fossils embedded in the marble throughout.

Apparently the moose are a great deal more intelligent than in other states in the US. Somehow they have trained their wild moose to cross the highways in a specific area – for example in the next 1,500 feet!

As we were making our way back to the RV Park, I thought we were maybe within about 8 or 10 miles, but the Bitch was suggesting it was going to take us over an hour to get there – odd! Then I figured out she was trying to get us to make a U-turn by making two rights and a left, or two lefts and a right. When she finally gave up and accepted the direction I was driving, our destination time dropped from an hour and a half, to 15 minutes – and I soon learned why – Smuggler’s Notch.

We had wanted to visit Smuggler’s Notch, what we heard was a beautiful Vermont state park. We just stumbled on it here, and this might be the first time ever that our GPS actually warned us to avoid something. We always have her set on “Bus” mode, so she shouldn't direct us to go down roads not suitable to a large vehicle, but she does it all the time. Apparently Smugglers Notch is on record as not being open to trucks and buses, so she was desperately trying to get us to avoid it – guess she didn't know we were in the Saturn. So we got to see this beautiful, but often single lane, scenic road.

We stopped to stroll through the most beautiful section of the Park. That is when the Woman spotted this formation reminiscent of some animal. The Woman thought it looked like a sheep, while I thought it looked like a rabbit. Either way, we both agreed it definitely was an animal.

We hit all the scenic roads we could, and found a map that gave us an idea where some of the many covered bridges were still in use. Most of them dating back into the 1800’s, and most of them being a single lane, they were a lot of fun to seek out, drive across and walk back.

Almost all of them were nestled above some really nice cascades on a rocky creek. So not only did we get to see a nice piece of early history, we nearly always got to see some pleasant scenery and some nice fall colors to boot.

Our favorite covered bridge of all was the Kissing Bridge. The bridge was said to have been originally built in 1844. Unfortunately, we weren't able to figure out how the name came about, but we did manage to be inspired by the name, and properly christened the bridge ourselves.

The longest of the bridges we saw was the Taftsville Covered Bridge, built in 1836. As an example of what we have to put up with, it was a good thing we were in the Saturn at the time because the Bitch sent us across this bridge, which has a 10 foot height restriction – no self-respecting truck could fit here!

Our scenic road journey took us within 8 or 10 miles of the Canadian border, so we decided to sneak up there and see if the fall colors were any different North of the border. It turned out, they were about the same. But since we were there anyway, we stopped at Canadian Tire – we learned that Canadian Tire stores are pretty much the equivalent of a Wal-Mart minus the huge food section – and stocked up on the things we can’t get in the US. On the buy list was the Woman’s Tylenol with Codeine (over the counter in Canada), my most favorite hay fever fix, Drixoral antihistamines (over the counter in Canada, but because of some FDA issue, no longer distributed in the US, too expensive to buy online) and the Woman’s Zip Starters – kerosene based fire starters that she loves, but aren't distributed in the US for some reason.

After having to speak a bunch of French, and contraband in tow, we headed back to use one of our Zip Starters on a campfire if the weather holds.

Talk to you soon!