Moving on to Vermont

We thought that maybe we had hit peak fall colors while we were in Franconia New Hampshire. Well, we might have, but we learned that the timing of peak colors changes as you move about. We headed to the world famous ski resort town of Stowe Vermont. As we headed a bit West, we found that maybe the colors here were still at their peak, where when we were leaving Franconia, it was pretty clear that the peak was just a bit behind us.

Vermont is wonderful. Every turn in the road has a historic looking farm with silos poking into the skyline, and behind the farm and silo is a hillside with a blanket of fall colors. It seems like you would get numb to this after a while, but no – the next one is just as beautiful as the last. You don’t seem to ever tire of the beauty.

Our first stop was the Ben & Jerry’s factory for a tour in Waterbury Vermont. We learned a bit how the two college buddies, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, who threw their money together in 1977 and enrolled in a correspondence course on ice cream making from Penn State University. Upon completing it, they started the Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Company in a garage in Burlington Vermont in May of 1978. Although selling the company along the way to an international conglomerate, they have managed to retain the corporate culture of making only premium products using sustainable and fair trade ingredients.

In touring the plant we got to see them making Vanilla that day, still one of their biggest sellers. We learned that while this building was the original factory Ben and Jerry built to expand operations from their garage in Burlington. We also learned that there is a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream plant in our home town of Henderson Nevada – had to come all the way to Vermont to learn that! Of course our tour ended up in the original development kitchen where Ben and Jerry would create their most famous flavors, and were treated to a nice scoop of strawberry cheesecake ice cream – even I made an exception for that.

After the fun tour we visited the Ben & Jerry’s Flavor Graveyard. It was really a cute idea, one that only a company with a culture like this would come up with. Because they try to introduce maybe 30 or so new flavors a year, they of course have had to cease production of many of the flavors that have been introduced over time.

Each time that the production of a flavor ceases, a tombstone is erected in the Flavor Graveyard. The tombstones are brightly colored as in the Ben & Jerry’s culture, and each has an epitaph in keeping with the whimsical corporate culture. We couldn't help but read them all before we were done.

Touring the Ben & Jerry’s Factory feels a lot like being on a Southwest Airlines flight – the folk working there all seem to be having a blast, and there is a constant level of irreverence in their communication, including our tour guide. She capped of her irreverence when we entered the kitchen and lined up for our free sample – here is what the poster on the tasting counter said our flavor of the day would be!

Next we visited Maple Grove Farms, also in Waterbury, one of the biggest distributors of maple products in the US. We learned about the production process all the way from the maple tree to the market. What I didn’t know is that there are four distinct grades for pure maple syrup. Grade A Fancy is a very light amber color and mild maple flavor – from there the grades go to Grade A Medium and Dark, and finally Grade B, each with a darker amber appearance, and a more and more pronounced maple flavor. We got to sample all the grades at the factory store, as well as a sampling of their premier maple sugar candy – yum!

We visited Stowe Ski Resort and grabbed a cheese plate and a couple glasses of wine while we played Zar and gazed at the gondolas climbing the slopes. There is just something special about a world class ski resort, and we really enjoyed this time.

We jogged over to Burlington, the largest city in the state. With a metro population of over 200,000, it may hold about a third of the population of the entire state. Burlington is on Lake Champlain, named for Samuel de Champlain who discovered it – at least as far as white Europeans are concerned – in 1609. In the early 1800’s, the construction of the Champlain Canal connected the lake with the Hudson River system and allowed ocean traffic into the lake. We had a nice walk around town and hit the Church Street historic pedestrian mall, set up to hold all their higher end retail development.

We never did find the original Ben & Jerry’s garage where it all started, but we still had a great visit.

Talk to you soon!