no more bedhead

Our last full day in Vermont started with Ellen and me heading down into Waterbury on a Heady Topper quest. Actually, I was looking for the Craft Beer Cellar, which I hoped would have Heady, but at least would have a good selection of craft brews.

Our plan was temporarily thwarted by Waterbury's "Not quite Independence Day" parade.  The parade was going right down Rt. 100 past the store, so we couldn't get there. We did find a side street place to park, and walked a couple of blocks to the store, though. Even though we missed the parade, we got there in time to see the fire truck with the giant American flag that was hanging over the route. Ellen took a picture of it and posted it on Facebook.  The kids saw it and now think we went to a parade without them!

The Craft Beer Cellar did have Heady, with a one four-pack per person limit, so we got two, and a couple of other things that looked interesting. Definitely a place to check out earlier in the week next time.

The afternoon saw the cousins come over and they took the kids fishing in the little brook by the house.  Everyone caught fish and threw them back in, but a couple of them were too badly damaged to return to the water, so those came home.

John taught Iain how to clean a fish, then Liam fried them up for a tasty dinner.

Cleaning the fish

Plated

 It was a nice, relaxing end to our Vermont vacation.  Sunday saw us back on the highway to Connecticut to spend the night (and one more time at Village Pizza), then back to Ohio on Monday.

On Friday we were going to go to Texas Falls, but all the people who had to drive didn't want to drive that long.  So, we called an audible and went to Shelburne Farms instead.  It was a lot of fun.

Main barn and grounds from the trailhead

We toured the main barn area and the kids got to see the cows, goats, and chickens in the barn. We also went to the outdoor area where those animals roam (relatively) freely.

A chicken crossing the road. I asked 'why?', and he said 'BRAAWWK'.

We hiked one of the trails on the grounds that led to a spectacular view of Lake Champlain.



My favorite place was the cheesemaking area.  We went back there several times throughout the day to watch them making, well, cheese.  It's an interesting process that takes all day, but makes a very large amount of cheese - they make about 140,000 pounds per year.  And, of course, they had samples.  Very tasty.  I enjoyed the 2-Year cheese very much.

Zack making the cheese. The cheese has been cut into "fingers" and he's "salting" it to stop the process

As Iain and I were intrigued by the process, we bought a book with recipes and tips for making your own cheese at home. Can't wait!!

As we were leaving - by way of tractor-pulled cart - I noticed the bread shop/bakery. I've been to Shelburne Farms twice, and neither time did I go to the bakery. I don't know why, but I have to remember to make that the first stop next time I go. Unless there's something interesting in the cheese making.

Today had us laying about "Stowe Haus" for a while, then Laura joined us and we headed into Stowe proper. We took a back way that avoided all the traffic on Route 100, and as a bonus, featured a covered bridge!  The road that passed through the bridge was a dirt road, and I noticed that the road was actually better maintained than the asphalt streets back home.

The "back way" also had the advantage of coming out right by the place where we usually park.  Ellen and Laura took the kids into the post office to mail a postcard to our neighbor.  The kids were excited to see this, as they have never been in a post office before (or so they claim).  Still, the card was hand-cancelled, so they got to see that which is kind of cool.

We went to our regular stops at the Stowe Mercantile, which has all kinds of Vermont-related items, from food to beer to t-shirts to games and toys.  Ellen found some jelly made with Heady Topper beer, and picked that up. The sample that was out was made with a porter and that was pretty tasty, so I'm going to have to make some Bready Topper when we get home and see how the Heady Jelly tastes on it. (If it's good, we - and you - can order it from Potlicker Kitchen.)

I get tired of shopping easily, so while everyone was still in the mercantile (and the shops in the same building), I went outside to enjoy the sunshine and the view of downtown Stowe from a bench.  Found a friend, too:



As I was sitting there, I started to smell something good.  I looked up the street and could see what looked like some people setting up a large grilling device on the side of the road. Smoke poured out of it, and the smell was delicious.  As I looked more closely, something wasn't right. It almost looked like that smoke was coming out of a car. In fact, that car almost looked like an old-style Volkswagen Beetle.  I had to investigate.

I was right. Behold the Carbecue:


Apparently, they are in Maryland and Vermont. Ellen, Laura, and the kids found me there and Ellen lamented the fate of the Bug.  I thought it was brilliant!

We wandered around Stowe for a while longer, finally ending up back at the Carbecue. It was there for a small craft fair that was just getting under way, so we browsed through that on our way back to the car.  We did come across a great booth for Green Village Soap Co. [Etsy / Facebook], whose producst are similar to Lush's - natural products, goat's milk soaps, etc.  We got some charcoal-based soap to try when we get home, and Ellen got some deodorant that smells really nice.

One last shot from Stowe, presented without commentary:

The day started out with promise. Iain needed to be in Burlington by 11:00 to go on a tour of St. Michael's College with Liam.  Ellen and I planned on doing the only two things on my "must do" Vermont list - Green Mountain Harley-Davidson, and the "bevvy" (Winooski Beverage) to see which Vermont craft brews we might like to take home, and get some cases of Heady Topper.  Dinner would be at Laura's.

We got Iain to town on time (almost).  When he returned the plan changed to Ellen and Laura going out shopping (taking the two older kids downtown), and I would stay home with the younger kids. While they were downtown, Iain went to the 3-D printing store and one of his models, the spaceship, was ready to bring home. The Ganesha we'll have to pick up.

Between their trip downtown, dinner, and hanging out, I spent 11 hours sitting on a couch.  So, nothing to report today.

The weather was gorgeous for a Sunday drive from Connecticut to Vermont.  Travel was easy, everyone was excited, but the best part was the motorcycles. It was the last day of Laconia (NH) Motorcycle Week, and people were starting to head home. The southbound lanes of I-91 had a lot of extra motorcycle traffic, and I was filled with a mix of joy (at seeing the different bikes) and jealousy (at not being out there).

We got to Stowe in pretty good time and got settled in to "Stowe Haus".  Ellen's brother-in-law John's brother is a retired colonel from the army, but he's been hired as a consultant to do whatever it was he was doing when he was active duty.  This means that he is still "stationed" in Germany. He has a house in Stowe so that he and his family will have a place to go when they come back to the states, and I think it will be a place to live upon permanent return.  In the meantime, the house gets rented out, and we are beneficiaries of that largesse.

Laura and Liam and Maggie were there to greet us upon our arrival, and Liam and I ended up sitting around watching the USA-Portugal World Cup match.  It was a thrilling game, that ended in a tie as Portugal scored just before the end of extra time in the second half.  Now the US has to beat or tie Germany on Thursday to move on to the elimination round.

Monday saw us head in to Laura's house in Colchester. We had decided to go to Burlington and to the Church Street Marketplace to do some shopping and visit our niece Libby, who works at Ben & Jerry's (score!!).  We wandered around, visiting shops we usually frequent, like Earthbound (clothes, but also incense, cool Buddhist/Hindu statuary, and other eclectic stuff), Frog Hollow (locally made art pieces) and stores we've recently discovered, like Saratoga Olive Oil Company (this year we bought two vinegars - fig and coconut - and some spice rubs - Adobo and Kentucky something.

One really cool store that wasn't there last year is Blu-Bin.  They do 3-D printing on site. You can purchase items that have been printed, or you can bring them your own files and they will print them.  They also will scan something you bring in, and create the file for printing.  I thought Iain's head was going to pop off when he discovered this store.  When we got back to Stowe Haus, we had to scour the internet for 3-D printing plans that he could take in.  We found a spaceship from one of the video games he plays, and a Ganesha. Blu-bin's website is "under construction", but here's an article from Burlington's Seven Days newspaper about the store.

As we were wandering around, we got a text from Libby that Ben & Jerry's was pretty slow and that would be a good time to come in.  I had a cone of Coconut Seven Layer Bar.  It was yummy.  Here's all of us enjoying our tasty treats:


Tuesday turned out to be a low-key kind of day. We stayed on the Stowe side of the mountains that separate Stowe from Burlington, and we visited the Danforth Pewter Store, the Lake Champlain Chocolates Store, and the Cabot Cheese outlet. (They are all in the same complex, so easy to do all at once.)

The chocolate store has some interesting things, including a chocolate filled with cider from Citizen Cider.  Laura got some for us to try and it was very tasty.  They also have a wall of "seconds", so I got a Sea Salt and Caramel chocolate bar off of that wall that was a-mah-zing!!  (Love the crunchy bits of salt!)

The Cabot store is a hard one to get out of without lightening your wallet.  They have samples of what seems to be all their cheeses, so you can just continue to walk around the table filling up.  All those cheeses are then available for sale in the cooler. Along with butter and yogurt, and local beer, and syrups.  The syrups also have a tasting station. I especially loved the "hot" infused syrups - Sweet Heat, Sweet Chai, and Sweet Ginger especially.