Mjneenan

Hello! I spent eight wonderful days in the middle of the summer driving the back roads of Vermont, trying to stay off of interstates as much as possible. I was able to get around to most corners of the state during my driving tour. I just posted a web album with 139 photos - all have explanatory captions. If you would like to look over my shoulder as I drove around with my camera in hand, click on the link below. You will need to click on each photo individually to be able to read the paragraph captions for each. I have done many such travel web albums in past years and I very much enjoy the subsequent interaction with like minded travelers and trip planners. So fire away with any questions you might have, please! If I have made any errors in identifying, please correct me - I will be much obliged.

https://picasaweb.google.com/1003399...4?noredirect=1

Vermont is quite the gorgeous state! I had never been there before and felt like it was high time I explored it. I'm so glad I did.

Happy travels!

Mike

michele_d

Thanks for sharing Mike. We leave in two weeks for Vermont and NH and I can't wait! Great pics...love the waterfall and the yellow mushroom. Glad you had a good time.
Michele

flpab

four stars for this report, love how you explained everything. Nice trip.

willowjane

What great photos! Thank you so much for sharing.

HappyTrvlr

Thanks Mike from someone who has spent a lot of time in VT. You captured it so well,

dfrostnh

Great photos! Fun to see places we haven't explored that are practically right next door.

NeoPatrick

Great pictures, but did I miss any hotels or whatever? Where did you stay? Any great "finds" in that regard?

Mjneenan

Thank you for the comments, everyone ... Patrick, These eight days in Vermont were actually part of a 46 day trip in the Northeast. As a teacher, I was on a budget, so when traveling alone, I usually stay in low cost motels, like Travel Lodge and so on - just a clean place to sleep. Keeping the daily costs down that way allowed me to stretch the total number of days. So I don't have any real advice on bed and breakfast "finds." ... My wife joined me for two weeks later on in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Annapolis - and there, we splurged on higher cost hotels to be close to the main tourist sights in those cities.

aussie_10

Wow fantastic photos and great ideas and places for our visit next fall.

Thank you fro sharing.

OO

Mike, I loved looking over your shoulder on your VT tour. Thank you so much for posting. I grew up in the Berkshires and worked at Eagle Camp in South Hero summers from high school thru a couple years of college, and the islands are in my blood! My family went to the camp from 1948 on and my brothers and their adult children still go. I know Ray Allen, from Allenholm Farms, and worked with the girl at Eagle Camp who was to become his first wife. Alas, that marriage didn't last. Your jogging those memories made me google him, then watch a fun video of Ray giving a TV reporter a little tour of the farm. I knew him when he was about 20, and now he's in his 70s. Fun to see, and I can still recognize him despite the years.

Like you, I enjoy doing loop tours, but growing up, really didn't appreciate the beauty. Now that I'm away, I know how awesome it is. I would go back each fall and my parents and I would make loops from the Berkshires up to Manchester, across to around Newfane, down to Brattleboro, then back to route 7 to home. It's just incredible beauty. I need to take my husband on one of those loops again.

Anyway, your pictures of the wonderful VT scenery made me ache to go back. It really hasn't changed all that much, except for Burlington, which has become such an "in" place, but the rest is as I remember it...so green in places the air was almost green too, especially on a rainy day.

Thank you so much for sharing. It was such fun riding along with you. I am going back!

Mjneenan

What a wonderful response, OO! You are so welcome. ... I was so curious about the back roads of Vermont before this trip of mine and it was just as beautiful as I imagined it would be, even more so. I just REALLY need to get there in October. ... Glad I could bring back some memories for you.

OO

The fall is wonderful, tho crowded, especially around peak, but you must do it once. There is no fall like a New England fall. You missed one of my favorite spots in Bennington I think--Robert Frost is buried behind the old Congregational church on the hill. The church is gorgeous in that plain Congregational way, and his gravesite, interesting because it is just so humble, tucked away like any ordinary grave in a pretty cemetery. Visitors leave coins and cigars on his grave. Not sure of the significance of that. So...a return trip is in order, in the fall.

I forgot to mention above, that I'm so old I've actually ridden on the Ticonderoga when she was still on the lake doing east west crossings.

I had my husband come look at your website, and he came away saying the same thing. "We've got to go back. Maybe next summer"....and I agreed. Thank you so very much!! You have started my day with a smile.

Mjneenan

Alas, I didn't really allow for much time in Bennington - now I wish I had. I would have enjoyed seeing Robert Frost's grave. ... The Ticonderoga was definitely interesting - I enjoyed walking through it. Ha, you ARE old! ... Well, I hope you and your husband do indeed get back to VT soon!

OO

Yes, when you see your child's highchair in an "antique" store, you know you are getting on. I also heard Robert Frost do a poetry reading, but only because (sadly!) I was fulfilling a "cultural event requirement" at my college sorority. Pathetic shallow youth.

Bennington is probably my least favorite VT town, we just had to pass through it too and from home, but the church and gravesite are very pretty.

We absolutely will get back, thank you. You've lit a fire under us both.

michele_d

We literally just walked in the door from our two weeks in Vermont and New Hampshire.

The colors, according to the locals, were the best they have been in three years. Outstanding shades of yellows and golds, deep oranges and fiery reds with a few pines mixed in for green. We hit nearly every antique shop in both states and found some absolutely stunning finds for decorating our wine tasting room and guest cottages.

The little villages are something out of a Norman Rockwell painting: every one has a white steeple church surrounded by green lawn, quaint little shops to stroll in and out of, giant maple trees and picturesque red barns dotting the landscape with a dozen cows thrown in to complete to scene. Ahhhh...just sooo beautiful.

Mjneenan

Michele_d ... Stop it! You're making me insanely jealous that I can't really see Vermont and New Hampshire in the autumn until I retire, as I am a high school teacher. I suppose my wife and I could drop in for just two days over a weekend, but I never seem willing to pull the trigger on such short trips. ... At any rate, I am glad you enjoyed your trip so much. Such a lovely part of the country!

sassy_cat

Hi Mike,

Your link isn't working for me. Internal server error... maybe it's my computer.

Love your photos so I will check back later.

The colours here have peaked this weekend (Massachusetts) and it's beautiful.
Vermont is lovely! We used to visit for a couple of weekends a year but haven't been for a year or two now as we have been exploring Maine instead on free weekends.

Mjneenan

sassy_cat ... hello there ... Hmmm, not sure why it wouldn't work. I am copying it again here, but I think it should be the same as in my original post.

https://picasaweb.google.com/1003399...4?noredirect=1

michele_d

Mjneenan,
You could see so much in even a couple days. The color is everywhere. We drove around in a motor home for the two weeks collecting antiques but we met several couples who stayed in one spot and did day trips to where the color was. Couldn't you, (cough cough sneeze sneeze), take a sick day to add to a weekend? You would not regret it.

bmw732002

Wonderful photos and dialog on each. Interesting on your take about Stowe. As a skier it was on my short list to visit.....but now I might need to change my "Bucket List"

Being from New Jersey we have 'pockets' of Vermont like vistas that might surprise some people who just see us as the Turnpike and Jersey shore!

-john