From Vermont's State House to Vermont's State Ice Cream

We are way behind in getting travel posts published this summer because we're having too much fun traveling! So we won't be confused about when each "wandering" happened, we'll start each blog with its actual date.

September 13, 2022

It's rainy this day, so we planned some indoor activities--all the way from the Vermont state capitol to the Vermont state ice cream. Our campground was just eleven miles from the Vermont State House. But on the twisty little roads around the capitol city of Montpelier, those eleven miles took 20 minutes to drive. Montpelier is the smallest capitol city in the United States--and the only one without a McDonald's.

The leaves were showing signs of autumn in the trees in front of the state house, as well as the forest right behind. Unlike most capitols that are surrounded by city buildings, this one is on the edge of this little town with a forest in its back yard.

As we climbed the front steps, we were greeted by Vermont's favorite son--Ethan Allen. A google search will first find the furniture brand that was named after him many years later. But in Vermont, Ethan Allen is most famous for his role of leadership in the Green Mountain Boys of the Revolutionary War. With his hand in the air, it's a friendly greeting to the state house. We also had to notice the Barre gray granite on the exterior of the capitol after visiting that quarry yesterday.

Every capitol has stories, and we love to learn about the uniqueness of each one. The state senate has only 30 seats, which originally included one from each county. But as population centers shifted, our tour guide pointed out that six of those seats are now held by a single county. That county in the northwest corner of the state includes the city of Burlington, where we will be camping next.

Vermont's original state house burned in the mid-1800's. The only thing rescued from the fire is the large portrait of George Washington that now hangs in Representative Hall. Four men raced into the burning state house and carried it out as the flames consumed the building.

This state's claim to fame is that it is "the oldest active legislative hall in the U.S. that have preserved their original interiors." That's different than last week's New Hampshire state house that boasted it was "the oldest continually used legislative chambers in America." That's a pretty subtle difference, but it means that New Hampshire did some up-dating in their chambers at some point. Vermont is proud that their legislators still sit at the same desks as their predecessors did in 1859.

Our tour guide smiled and told us that's why their legislative sessions are so short. Those 1859 chairs are not very comfortable.

In the senate chambers they also still use hand votes and hand stamp everything. They are proud of being old-school and avoiding technology in Vermont. 

We were ushered into the old governor's office. It's not that their governor is old, it's just that this is the old office where official gubernatorial signings and pictures are taken. The new governor's office is actually in a different building now.

Denisa had to take a picture of this knitted Vermont State House on display.

A close-up shows that this brings whole new meaning to the theme "Knit Democracy Together."

The most memorable piece of art is in the reception room. This 10 foot by 20 foot oil painting is of the Cedar Creek Battle of the Revolutionary War. The artist was actually at the battle, and he used pictures of other Cedar Creek soldiers in the painting.

When they rebuilt the state house in 1859, they used little wood because they had already experienced how fast it would burn. Even though they look like wood, the steps and handrails are actually cast iron.

We are finding that almost every state house will have portraits and sculptures of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Every state wants to claim these two American leaders.

Montpelier might be a state capitol, but it still has a very small-town feel with only 8,000 residents. It's the kind of place where you can wave at the few cars driving by while you sit in a rocking chair on the state history museum's wrap-around porch.

It was raining when we arrived at the state house, but we had a bit of a break in the weather when we left. We took advantage of that break to take a ride on the Montpelier Bike Trail.

We rode through this little town along the Winooski River. Winooski is the Indian word for onion. If you remember, we are camped at the Onion River Campground just eleven miles downstream.

It didn't take long to see all of Montpelier, and our next stop was in Waterbury, Vermont, at the Cold Hollow Cider Mill. We watched the video of the process of grinding up fresh apples, layering them, and then using a hydraulic press to squeeze out fresh juice. It's yummy 100% juice that is flash pasteurized just long enough to meet government regulations. It tastes like you are drinking a fresh apple. We watched the film by the tasting tank more than once, because that fresh apple juice was sooooo good. The film also explained that they make their apple cider jelly with no pectin or syrup--so of course we had to buy a jar of jelly. Then we also needed to buy a couple apple donuts. We have to say that we liked the fresh cider more than their jelly and donuts.

We had lunch at the Cider Cafe because we had a little time before our 2:30 reservation at Ben & Jerry's ice cream tour. Because it is wildly popular, tourists have to book the tour in advance.

It wasn't raining when we arrived, so we got a few pictures with the iconic props at this ice cream factory.

That includes a stop at the "Flavor Graveyard" where not-so-popular flavors are memorialized and laid to rest.

We took a few pictures of some of the flavors that are no longer available at Ben & Jerry's. Some were a decade old, while others died in their infancy.

Our 2:30 tour started with an 8-minute film. Then we were led through a passage-way where we could look down on the mixing and packaging departments. They were adding flavors and chunks and filling pint containers right below us. Our tour guide explained that they only sell pints of ice cream because they don't want to diminish quality from freezer burn. We think it's because they can charge half-gallon prices for pints. The third stop of the tour was at the test kitchen for the sample of the day. They posted that Broccoli Cheddar Chunk would be today's sample. We were glad that was a mean April fool's joke that is still going strong in September.

While they were making Chunky Monkey in the factory this day, our sample was actually strawberry cheesecake with graham cracker swirl. Everyone in our tour got a small cup of the pre-dipped ice cream. Then our guide explained that any ice cream that wasn't eaten by our group would have to be thrown away. She encouraged us to be heroes and save the ice cream from the trash can. We are proof that not all heroes wear capes--some wear ice cream mustaches. As we exited the tour, we walked down the hallway that enumerated the top ten Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavors. We wonder if any of these will ever end up in the flavor graveyard?

It was raining hard by the time we finished at Ben and Jerry's, so we scrapped our plans to drive to Stowe, Vermont, for more sightseeing. We found that we had fast internet in the ice cream parking lot, so we just hung around for a while. Our phone signal at our campground is nonexistent, even with our booster. In fact, Vermont has some of the worst cell service of the summer. We sat in the pickup in the rain, publishing a blog and researching future campground options. We headed home to our campground at 6:00 in the rain and fog, finishing up a day that went from Vermont's State House to Vermont's State Ice Cream.

A grandiose, pastoral, messy, embarrassing Vermont day

We are way behind in getting travel posts published this summer because we're having too much fun traveling! So we won't be confused about when each "wandering" happened, we'll start each blog with its actual date.

September 12, 2022

Our relocation drives in the motor home have been short in these smaller New England states. Today we drove only 38 miles in the motor home through the Green Mountains of Vermont.

While the Vermont highways are quite good, some of the side roads are a little questionable. We had to drive over a single lane bridge with a 24,000 pound limit to get to our next camp site at Onion River Campground.

After getting the motor home settled into its site, we headed out for a tour of the Rock of Ages Quarry in Barre (that's pronounced like "berry"), Vermont. This is the world's largest deep-hole granite quarry. We could look down to see the bright turquoise water that collects at the bottom. This amazing color comes from suspended silica in the water. That gorgeous blue water covers up most of the quarry. We can only see 200 feet of the quarried granite walls, while another 400 feet of this hole is below the water line. The word "grandiose" comes to mind when we look at this huge quarry.

It was hard to wrap our minds around just how deep that hole is. If you look very closely at the picture above you can see the tiny dots that are actually massive tractors and trucks that move the granite slabs out of the quarry.

We could only see these massive-wheeled trucks through the zoom lens. Maybe we should worry that a hole that big means they are about to run out of granite at this site? No, our tour guide told us that if they continue at the current rate, they will run out in 4,000 more years. 

The quarry hole is twice as deep as the Statue of Liberty is tall. When they were quarrying 600 feet below the surface, workers had to ride one of these boxes to get to work in the bottom of the quarry every day.

The trip to see the quarry has changed in the years since Covid. Instead of taking a company-owned bus from the visitor center to the quarry site, now everyone must drive their own vehicles. We followed our tour guide, who gave the group directions before we left. The last turn is right after one of those beautiful old white steepled churches. We have seen those old churches turned into a lot of different uses this summer. This was one of the saddest. It's now a MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) Fighting Gym.

 The Rock of Ages Visitor Center is very interesting, with a film and good displays that explain the granite quarrying process. It also describes the granite memorials that are made here. One of those displays mentioned that the Vermont State House (that we will be visiting soon) was the first public building built from Barre Gray Granite back in 1859. It also pointed out that in the late 1950's this quarry experimented with making bowling lanes out of granite. 

Seventy years later, the bowling lane is still in pristine condition even though it has been outside in all types of weather. The concept never caught on, but this prototype has been used by visitors for many years.

They encourage visitors to choose as many souvenir granite pieces as they want from the scrap pile out back. While Mark looked at them, we don't have room in the motor home for souvenirs like that.

They also encourage tourists to visit the nearby Hope Cemetery, where all the headstones were made from the Barre gray granite quarry we just visited. The Rock of Ages tour used to include walking through the memorial stone factory to watch the craftsmen carving these works of art. But that part of the tour died with Covid as well.

Our next stop of the day was the Morse Sugar Farm. We are in the heart of maple syrup country, where they are quick to point out that other stuff you might be putting on your pancakes actually includes 0% real maple. However, the syrup sold here is 100% maple!

We watched the very entertaining film at the visitor center that taught us all about gathering the sap and cooking the syrup. Then we walked the trail down to the maple trees that still have the plastic tubing attached. Instead of hanging individual buckets from each tree and having to dump them by hand, commercial syrup producers pump the sap through this web of tubing to common gathering spots. Each year a new hole is drilled in each tree to start the sap-gathering process.

We topped off our tour with a maple/chocolate twist ice cream cone that they call a creamee here in New England.

Today's drive took us over miles of gravel roads beside big barns, fields of corn, and green mountain meadows.

Some of those meadows were filled with sheep. We found ourselves using the word "pastoral" to describe the views today.

One gravel road took us to Coburn Covered Bridge. Built in the 1840s, it is one of over 100 covered bridges protected by state law in Vermont. This state boasts having the highest concentration of covered bridges in the country. Denisa is really liking it here!

Someone had taken the time to plant and care for flowers on this lonesome gravel road.

When traveling the backroads, we love to stop at the local fruit and vegetable stands. Almost all of them are un-manned, with prices on slips of paper and a box to leave your money. We have gotten in the habit of keeping small bills with us, because there is no way to make change at all these little produce stands.

Mark had read about the Plainfield Bike Trail, so we took another gravel road to that trail head. It was a narrow little trail, so we wondered if we were in the right place. We were glad to talk to a gentleman just finishing his bike ride today, and he assured us we had indeed found the Plainfield Trail. He told us about some tricky turns, and an old bus landmark on the trail, and a little history. 

So we knew that we were on the right trail as we headed into the forest. We were glad to see that the trail got wider.

But when we had ridden about three miles, we suddenly came into the worst mud bog of a trail ever! It seems that our friendly bike rider might have mentioned this in his description?!? We tried to pedal through the mud, but Denisa didn't make it. The word "messy" comes to mind. We would pass through two more muddy areas. Now Denisa is afraid of the mud that might be ahead of us, and doesn't want to go back through those mud bogs again.

So she stayed on the trail near the tall bridge overlooking Onion River. This bridge was close to the point where the bike trail had to cross a vehicular road. Then Mark rode his bike the four miles back through the mud bogs. He loaded up his bike on the pickup, and drove back to pick Denisa and her bike up. He is her prince on a white stallion (that looks a lot like a bicycle). While waiting on the bridge on this cool afternoon, Denisa saw some skinny-dippers in the river below. They were oblivious that there was someone on the bridge right above them. The word "embarrassing" comes to mind. (No need to zoom in on the picture below because Denisa took that picture before the skinny-dippers showed up.)

Mark loaded up Denisa's bike and we continued towards our campground. We're still driving little gravel roads beside big barns hemmed with old stone fences, 

with steep dirt road views of the Green Mountains around us.

Our last stop is the Martin Covered Bridge, in the middle of a park so there is no traffic crossing it. 

We had no wifi and no internet in this part of Vermont, so we spent some time in the evening trying to sort through the hundreds of pictures we have taken lately. We are over a month behind in blogging, with no signs of catching up any time soon. We're seeing and enjoying too much to sit around writing about it. We'll catch up later when we have less to see. We watched the sun lowering in the sky from the green pasture that overlooks our camp site in this remote section of Vermont.  We loved this grandiose, pastoral, messy, embarrassing Vermont day!