R and J in the USA

The second you drive into Vermont, you know you are in Vermont. We spent much of Vermont trying to put our finger on what exactly it is that gave us that Vermont feeling. We put our fingers on more than a few factors, but left wondering if we’d even come close to really grasping it.

There’s the somewhat obvious – there are no billboards. The roadside signs as you approach each town or crossroads simply inform you of the upcoming businesses. No flashy advertising. Just the information you need to become a patron of one after another local business, shop or attraction.

Then, of course, there are the Green Mountains rolling up beside you in beautiful view from most every point in the state, and the rolling hills, open fields, abundant farms, and gorgeous red barns peppering the landscape.

Maybe it’s the fact that even the cities feel like small towns and the small towns feel like what you might expect to be the Main Street in a larger town. Or that the towns end just as suddenly as they begin, getting you right back to nature’s kingdom as soon as possible.

Maybe it’s something about the people – laid back in a particular kind of Vermont way that still boasts hard work, but not all that much ado about it.

Maybe it’s the fact that everywhere you go in Vermont seems to be just as scenic as every other place. There’s no place we found we wanted to get out of so we could get to somewhere else.

At the end of the day, we decided the magic touch had at least something to do with the colors. It seemed that every place you looked, you would have the same combination of bursting colors in the frame, with none of them overtaking another.

We didn’t know exactly what it was about Vermont, but we knew we liked it. 

We certainly knew it was the first state that made it EASY to dump our compost, there being a compost bin right next to the garbage and recycling bin in the state parks. Ryan is a willing composter. Julie is an avid composter, so she was fairly elated.

We drove from Maine right to the capital city of Montpelier to visit the statehouse and state museum. While en route we realized that both would close at 4:00 and we wouldn’t arrive until 3:00, so we’d have to choose one or the other. We chose the statehouse, hitting the capitol building just in time to catch the last tour of the day.

We learned about the Vermont state motto – Freedom and Unity – and were impressed by its recognition of this most difficult balance. This balance is part of any society, especially one like the United States, which is defined by our commitment to liberty and our pursuit of being free as individuals together. A tricky balance that Vermont appears to be facing head on. As with each state capitol, we enjoyed finding out the little details of state history that shaped the state of today and the nooks and crannies of a building always rich with meaning and interesting stories.

We wandered the charming streets of Montpelier until we stumbled upon a very happy site – a creperie (with gluten free, dairy free options for Julie). We ate crepes, shopped in bookstores, and took in the overall charm of yet another humble New England state capital town.

After a stop at Morse Maple Farm we swung by the Ben and Jerry’s factory in Waterbury for, you guessed it, ice cream. For Ryan, anyways. Ben and Jerry’s often does not have both gluten and dairy free flavors available, so Julie looked on with envy.

After a look at the Ben and Jerry’s flavor graveyard, we headed to our campsite at Lake Elmore State Park, which is known in the state as “the beauty spot”. As a moniker, it is short, to the point, and, we can report, accurate. Julie enjoyed a fairly blissful swim in said lake and we called another itinerary audible. We decided to change up our schedule so we could swing back through Montpelier to hit the state history museum and get a little more post-Maine hiking and 5K rest before our Vermont hiking and 5K began. Originally, we planned to hike Mount Mansfield and have a day of rest before our Vermont 5K. We knew this itinerary change meant losing our day of rest and sacrificing a Middlebury visit. But, having both been there before and willing to face a back-to-back hike and 5K, we rolled with it.

We headed to Burlington, a town that Ryan was particularly looking forward to seeing, having never been there before. We walked the downtown pedestrian mall and had DELICIOUS farm fresh burgers. We headed down to the shores of Lake Champlain to take in the beautiful flower gardens, rocking benches, and a view of the mountains we like to think of as our home mountains, our beloved Adirondacks. It was neat to see them from this outside view. Before leaving town, we had one of our most momentous visits. Not to brag, but we have now been to see, in person, the world’s tallest filing cabinet.

We stopped at the Shelburne Museum with one hour left before closing time. It was so neat! It was endearingly bucolic and at the same time grand, a little quirky, and hard to put your finger on exactly what it was a museum of. It was fun, fascinating, educational and FILLED with beautiful views. In short it was a quintessential Vermont attraction. We saw authentic works from Monet, Manet, Cassatt, Rembrandt, Wyeth, and Grandma Moses, among other world-famous artists. We walked inside an old steamship that made Julie want to act out scenes from Titanic, visited a Blacksmith shop, and saw a great art exhibit on trains and their impact on the American landscape, economy, and life. 

After a lovely remote Harvest Host stay, we were soon plugging up the inclines of Mount Mansfield via the sunset ridge trail to “the chin” as they say. When we got to the top it was a regular party. Anytime you get to the top of a mountain that made you really work for it, it is always humbling to see the teeny children and dogs that clearly also made the same trek. It was an eventful peak time. We both found just right stone nooks to rest and shut our eyes in, Julie had her favorite mountain top treat (a banana, almond butter, and jelly sandwich), there was a girl sitting on the top with a Pittsford Mendon High School t-shirt on (Julie’s Alma mater) who we said hello to, and a young man got down on one knee, the woman in front of him said yes, and the crowd atop the mountain burst into applause and cheers. On our way out, we took a few pictures for the newly engaged couple of their special moment. It was a fun time.

We left the mountain after a little less than two hours of solid knee-pounding descent, drove once again through the beautiful town of Stowe without time to stop, and landed back in Montpelier, where we, once again, had one hour before closing time – this time in the State History Museum. We circled back for more crepes, savory ones this time.

From Montpelier, we made our way to the small town of Sharon, to our pre-5K Harvest Host location. We parked in a beautiful spot in the Harvest Host’s yard with views as common to Vermont as cracks in the pavement are in any parking lot in New York – that is to say, stunning. We ran into our first ice cream drought of the trip. Usually, our ice cream task is to will ourselves to say no when we just don’t need anymore. This time, Ryan had a hankering for it and we couldn’t find what he was looking for near where we were in Montpelier. When we arrived in the small town of Sharon, the one little ice cream truck establishment apparently had closed a few hours earlier. He settled for a gas station ice cream bar. This is when you know you are living a very, very fortunate life. When settling for the ice cream that is not exactly what you wanted is a hardship. We are incredibly fortunate and we are thankful for it.

We woke up in the morning and headed to the only mildly intimidatingly titled Hurricane Hill 5K. The race was in Hartford, Vermont, just across the state line from Hanover, New Hampshire, where Ryan’s good friend Peter lives. Peter planned to meet us for a post-race hang at “our house”. It was the first time we planned to have visitors over to our house on wheels. The race took no prisoners and was quite fun, and also a story all of its own that you can read about in our 5K section. We met up with Peter, who brought pastries from the local farmer’s market, and hung out long enough that we would have to cut out one of our planned attractions for later that day. It was, of course, worth it.

We headed out for our last Vermont stop, the Calvin Coolidge Historical Site, and left there with books and pins from the gift shop that said, “Coolidge ‘24”. Having gone in knowing close to nothing about our 30th president, we both came out with tremendous respect for and were becoming fast fans of a man that seemed honest, practical, and simple in the most wonderful of ways. On the way in, we met an older couple that was outgoing and with whom we had a great conversation. We quickly discovered, in yet another coincidence, that the gentleman and Julie went to the same university! He was Class of ‘78 and Julie was Class of ‘01.

As we left Vermont we had not found ourselves any more able to put our finger on exactly what that special Vermont quality was. We felt it evaporate as soon as we crossed the state line. We were sorry to see Vermont in our rearview mirror, but happy to have been there, and felt as if we were taking a little bit of that special Vermont something with us as we traveled on.