Vermont & New Hampshire – September 25 – October 2, 2011

We stayed at Killington Townhouses. They were located partially up the mountain and the resort is rather small. The units were nice and comfortable.





We enjoyed the fall scenery at the Killington Ski area.




We drove to Woodstock and toured Billings Farm & Museum and also saw a small quilt show. We watched a film about Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller then went to the national park. The home was huge – 14,000 square feet and I believe 28 rooms. It had been added onto by the different families. We took a horse carriage ride to the top of the hill.







We took a tour through the town on a trolley which was fueled by "Cow Power".


We drove out through the countryside to Sugarbush Farm where we tasted cheese and maple syrup.



We went to Crowley Cheese





and then Plymouth Notch, the home town of President Coolidge. Bob & I had been there in 1990 but there were more buildings open now and there was a new visitor center. The road to get there just opened on the week-end.











We took a trip to Burlington to go to the Lake Champlain Chocolate Company. We had a tour, sampled candy and had some of their ice cream.





We stopped along the way to pick a peck of apples right from the tree.

They were delicious. Then we continued on to Essex Junction to visit with Aunt Betty and Uncle Bud.
Thursday it rained all day so we spent time in the condo doing a foot spa and pedicures.

We stopped for pictures at Quechee Gorge. There was a covered bridge below across the river but it was swept away.





Here are the pictures that we have of all the devastation from the flood on August 28. Many of the roads had been repaired. One of the highways had been washed out for over ½ mile. They said that the water was only there for 5 hours but what damage.











The other thing we enjoyed was the hay bales. There is a contest in Killington for decorated hay bales. We tried to get pictures of all of them. What fun!





























Friday we packed the van and left for New Hampshire. We stopped at St. Gaudens NHS and since the weather was better we were able to see more of the property this time and Debby got to see it also.


This is a second casting or a copy of the original that is in Boston.



We continued on and met Clif and Anne at Johnson’s and had seafood for dinner. Saturday Brent and Christine came to visit also and Clif fixed lasagna and we had lobster. Sunday we left early to drop Debby off at Bradley for her flight back to Nashville.

Western Massachusetts

We drove west and north when we left Boston so that we could stop at the Yankee Candle Company in Deerfield, MA. We stayed at the Silverleaf Resort in Lee, MA for the next week. We drove to Saratoga, New York to see the Saratoga NHP which is near the Hudson River. They were having a special week-end with folks in British and Colonial costumes.




We met with the Arbonne lady on Monday and bought a couple of things. We also purchased new laptop computers, one for each of us so the rest of the week we spent doing some transfer of items and learning the Windows 7 operating system. It and I are not doing real well as it is quite a change. Friday we packed and then in late evening we drove about 5 miles away to a house in the woods and met with Eric, Martha, Kevin, Malia, Martha’s sister and also Martha’s son Fernando, daughter-in-law Che and grand-daughter Mariel. And I probably didn’t spell the names right.


It was sure great seeing everyone and very shocking to end up just a few miles apart. We got the van stuck and had to call AAA to be pulled out. It was raining.
Saturday, September 24 we checked out and headed to Bradley airport to pick up Deb. We ate lunch at Friendly’s and then went to Yankee Candle. Then we headed to Vermont stopping at a visitor center to see about road closures because of the damage from Hurricane Irene. We had to take a longer route to get to the resort in Killington but had no problems getting there. Part of the road had just been opened that week and the damage that we saw was unbelievable. I will post those pictures in the next blog.