Day 3 - Across Vermont

After being rained out yesterday, we went back to Bellows Falls this morning.  I have so many pics that I will have to do a whole post just on that town at another time.  But we did find the falls, here on the Connecticut River, where it narrows into a gorge.

And then we were off north and west to Chester.  Just outside of town we couldn't resist stopping at the antique mall.  It was fun to see all of the things a New England shop has that we don't have on the west coast.  Fortunately we can't fit much into our luggage, so it was easy to pass up all the treasures we found.

Chester is a beautiful village.  They were celebrating Memorial Day on the green.  In the book store we learned that they celebrate it on "the real day", May 30th.  Sounds like a Vermont thing to do.

Every landscape here includes hostas, even if there is nothing else but grass.  They seem to thrive here.

We thought it would be great to have late morning tea, but, alas, they are only open on weekends.

The next stop was Springfield, a mill town located around a 110 ft waterfall.  But we never found the water fall, just lots of old mill buildings.

Just outside of Springfield is this school house, the oldest one room school in the state.

Windsor, on the Connecticut River, is the birthplace of Vermont.  It was here in this tavern/inn that the constitution was drafted and signed.

It's another beautiful old town.

And it boasts the longest covered bridge in the USA, although it officially belongs to New Hampshire.  This is the Windsor-Cornish Bridge.

We finally made a lunch stop at this coffee shop.  I had a latte and a muffin.  Tom had a waffle with Vermont maple syrup.  We made up for it at dinner with salads and vegetables.

North of Windsor is the Simon Pierce Glass Factory.  We don't really know their products here on the west coast, but they are very big on the east coast.

Glassblowers make goblets, candlesticks, and other high quality household glassware.  There is also a pottery that turns out table service.  We bought a glass ornament.

After heading north, we finally turned west on highway 4, out of the Connecticut River Valley and into the Green Mountains.  Here we stopped at Quechee Gorge.

The Taftsville Bridge was taken out by Hurricane Irene.  Bad girl!

Woodstock, VT is a very beautiful town, full of Victorian homes and lovely public buildings.  It is very up scale, but the old general store is still going strong.

Right in town is this lovely covered bridge.

Continuing west along the Ottauquechee River we came to another bridge, the Lincoln Bridge.

We were headed for Rutland for our overnight, but we still had time so we continued on north of Rutland to Pittsford, to the Maple Museum.

There we saw how maple syrup and sugar have been made through the ages, and tasted the various types.

And we asked about bridges and were given a map to locate four more just in that area.

Dave from New Zealand wanted to know why they covered the bridges.  I answered him by email, but I got it wrong.  Of course Tom knew the correct answer.


In Vermont the only lumber tree they have is the Eastern White Pine.  It is not resistant to rot or decay, so they covered the actual bridge deck to protect it from the elements to preserve it.


And some guy named Wilson decided to build a castle out there in the hinterlands.  You can pay to go in it, but a drive by was good enough for us.


We are happily tucked away in our Best Western Inn tonight, and although dealing with very slow internet, we're keeping track of the 
sounders currently playing in Seattle.