Mom and Dad waiting to board the train.
Wade and I waiting for the train.
Another beautiful shot from the train!
And another...
A beautiful farm we saw along the way on the train.
We ate at a really neat old diner in Quechee - great hamburgers!!
This is the Quechee Gorge. It's much deeper than the picture can show and is probably the most beautiful thing we saw on our trip. You could just stand on the footbridge all day and listen to the water flowing.
Mom and Dad on the footbridge overlooking the gorge.
A shot of the gorge from the other side of the bridge!
We stopped to see a neat covered bridge and falls in Taftsville on the way back from the Quechee Gorge. Here's mom peeking out!
These are the falls right next to the bridge.
Wade and Amy stepped down for a closer look.
Another shot of the covered bridge. There are tons of covered bridges in the state, but this red one was a very pretty one!
Look how long it is!
Me standing near the falls in Taftsville.
There was a beautiful senior home we drove past. The landscaping was gorgeous so we stopped to take some pictures! Wade took several close ups so I had to post them!
Mom and dad out in front of the place!
The marigolds in Vermont are HUGE! Much bigger than anything you could grow in Texas.
And more flowers!
When I first saw this pic I thought "wow - look how beautifully the leaves fell on the rock." And then I found out that mom and Wade staged it just that way!!
This is the Inn on the Green bed and breakfast in Middlebury. It was built in 1803! Middlebury is where Wade lived for 4 years as a teenager.
This is the Pulp Mill bridge in Middlebury. It is the oldest covered bridge in Vermont and was built in 1808. Wade and his mom crossed this bridge every day when they lived there.
This is the path we had to take to get to the Middlebury Falls. It was rocky and a bit wet, but we got through!
Another shot of Middlebury Falls.
Me and Wade at the falls.
Mom and Amy at the falls!
Just down the street from the falls in Middlebury is the Morgan Horse Farm. That beautiful building is actually the stables!
This is the Waybury Inn in East Middlebury! This is the inn that was used in the opening of the Bob Newhart show! It is a working inn that was built in 1810.
This is the East Middlebury Gorge. It is the New Haven River flowing under the bridge above. This gorge is not nearly as deep as the Quechee gorge, but still beautiful and we were able to walk down to it. Wade and his friends used to swim here! Some (not Wade) jumped off the bridge - yikes! The water is freezing, I could not imagine swimming in there.
Mom and Wade at the gorge.
The water is crystal clear. It looks only inches deep in this pic, but Wade said it's actually about waist deep.
Another picture of the falls - Wade and I walked all the way down to the falls to get these pictures.
And another shot! You can see the bridge up above the falls.
A nice shot of downtown Middlebury.
What are these? Large marshmallows (that's what we told the kids!) or big rolls of toilet paper? No, it's actually round hay bales wrapped in plastic. We saw these everywhere we drove.
The beautiful state capital building in Montpelier.
Next we made a stop at the Cold Hollow Cider Mill. I will never look at apple juice the same way. Apple juice as most of us know it is really terrible next to fresh cider. Fresh cider like they make here tastes like biting into an apple. SO good!
They press the apple mush using thick cloth and corrugated plastic sheets. It's neat to watch the stack get shorter and shorter as the juice gets pressed out. They then pasteurize the juice and put it in jugs. The remaining apple mush gets used in various other products so that nothing goes to waste.
Next stop was Ben and Jerry's! Dad teased and called it Tom and Jerry's because he thought nothing could rival his beloved Blue Bell. Well, one tour and a triple caramel chocolate ice cream later and he decided to call the place by it's real name. He and mom also tried the "coffee coffee buzz buzz buzz" flavor.
Wade posing by the Ben and Jerry's RV.
And me!
Me and Wade being goofy :)
And Amy and Mom being goofy :)
Ahhh, the Shelburne Country Store - one of my favorite shops to visit! It was located in Shelburne (shocker). Shelburne is dad's mom's maiden name! We bought several trinkets there and visited it twice while in Vermont.
A picture of Church Street Market in downtown Burlington.
A pic of the beautiful church at the end of Church Street!
Another day, another lunch! Here is Al's French Fry's where we ate yummy hamburgers!
Just a pic of some of the foliage in the Northeast area of Vermont. Pics truly cannot do the color justice. As I said often, it was brilliant!
Ok, this was quite funny to us. It was dusk, so pardon the darkness. See the sign here? It is the Homestead Residential Care / Mertens House Nursing Facility. See the sign down the road? Check out the next pic to see what business resides right next to the nursing home....
Yep, a funeral home! Talk about bad planning!
On Friday we took a boat tour on Lake Champlain. We've always known there were 5 great lakes in the US, so imagine our surprise when we found out that in 1998 Lake Champlain was named as the 6th great lake! It's not nearly as big as the other great lakes, but huge nonetheless. It is around 115 miles long and over 20 miles wide.
A beautiful shot on the lake.
See that yellow buoy in the water? Each yellow buoy you saw marked an place where there was ship wreckage below. There are over 800 areas of ship wreckage on Lake Champlain dating back several hundred years to the beginning of the United States.
Another beautiful lake shot!
Wade on one of the decks....
And me!
The beautiful town of Vergennes. Vergennes is the oldest chartered town in Vermont. Vermont dates back to 1761 and Vergennes was chartered in 1762. The road runs just above the falls.
Another shot of the falls.
This is the bridge that goes from Vermont into Crown Point, New York! Mom and Dad can now officially say they have been to New York! Never mind that it was for only about half an hour :)
A nice shot of foliage taken on a rainy Friday!
More beauty!
And more!
Outside a neat diner and gift shop.
Last picture! But, there is a story to go with it :) This is the garbage container outside where we stayed. The lady at the office told us to always make sure the chains were secured because they have a problem with bears coming down from the woods. Sure, we thought. Ahem. Late Thursday night, around 11:00pm, Wade and I had just gone to bed. Dad was already asleep and Mom was brushing her teeth getting ready for bed. Wade and I heard a loud noise and Wade proclaimed that perhaps it was a bear. No way I thought! He looked out the window and what did he see atop the trash container - a BIG BLACK BEAR!!!! He hit the button on the van remote to turn on the lights so we could see and oh my goodness was it huge! Not wanting mom to miss this sight, I ran upstairs yelling for her. I think I scared her half to death because she screamed really loud :) We looked out her window and she got to see the bear as well. We didn't have a mind to get out the camera, so you will have to take our word for it. But, he put a big dent on the lid at the top and pulled back the top of the trash container on one corner. Wade thought it was the chain keeping it up, but he tried to lower it down and it is permanently stuck in that position - YIKES!!!
Well, that concludes my Vermont trip pictures. We had a great time, but I have never been happier to see my 3 babies :)
