I am starting with the end of our trip, but Vermont was just so beautiful and is the most on my mind right now. After spending the night in Montreal, we took a Greyhound bus down to White River Junction where my uncle Sam and my aunt Eleanor met us.
Taking the bus seems to be just about the cheapest way to travel from Canada to Vermont (if you aren't driving your own car). The ride was very comfortable but I would strongly recommend that you not travel on a Sunday. I think everyone in Vermont had gone to Canada for the weekend and were returning back home on Sunday. We were traveling along making good speed until we got a mile or two (I really don't think it was much farther than that) from the border when we hit two lanes of traffic that was not generally moving at all (ever once in a while we would move an inch or two). We eventually came to an added lane on the left for buses. It felt so good to speed down that lane and drive by maybe 6 lanes now of backed up vehicles. Then we had to stop at the border because there was another motorcoach/bus stopped. I checked my watch and it had been one hour (yes, you read that right) one hour since we had come up on the backed up traffic. Well, we sat in our bus (at least the driver had left the engine running so it was cool in the bus) 45 minutes waiting for the bus load of Asians to be approved to enter the US. We couldn't believe it took so long and my husband said he thought maybe it was because they were Asians and maybe many didn't speak English and had trouble answering the questions we were asked. Well, imagine my surprise when everyone had finally gotten back on the bus and was ready to leave and I looked at my watch and it had taken us 1 hr and 15 minutes to clear. For whatever reason, they called 12 people on our bus back in a room to talk to them further and we had to wait on them. We never found out why they were held longer. Anyway, it took us 3 hours and 15 minutes to enter Vermont from Canada from the time we stopped for the traffic and then drove into Canada.
We were on interstate most of the time and it seemed to be lined with tall trees, but when we did come to a clearing, we usually saw a beautiful valley and a farm or two. I didn't manage to get any pictures because the clearing would come up on me too quickly to get my phone camera ready to take a picture.
Woodstock, VT
Sam and Eleanor do not live too far from Woodstock, VT so I took some picture there as we walked around the town. (Notice all of the beautiful flowers...we saw them everywhere we went while on our trip.)
And the first of many covered bridges we would see... Woodstock Middle Bridge, 1969 is the first authentic highway covered bridge built in VT or NH in the twentieth century utilizing the truss patented by Ithiel Town in 1820. It burned on May 11, 1974 and was rebuilt in 1976.
The view of the Ottaquechee River from the bridge...
The church they attend in Springfield, VT...(Founded in 1843)
This is the Jenne Farm, in Reading, VT which is supposed to be the most photographed farms in the world (especially in the fall)...
Some more of the countryside. (my phone camera didn't do them justice)
I was disappointed to learn that when the maple trees are tapped to make maple syrup that they don't use the buckets anymore. They "tap" the tree with a plastic tube and the sap is "transported" through the tube.
They have a lot of dirt roads in Vermont...
Another covered bridge...
There are a lot of "small" dairy farms and ones that make cheese that is shipped all over the world. Tastes really great also...
I took these pictures in their milking barn...They weren't being milked at the time, just eating...
One afternoon we visited with a first cousin of Eleanor's who has 60 dairy cows, a saw mill, and his own sugaring place where he makes his own maple syrup.
His barn...(The younger cows utilize the second floor and he stores hay on the third and fourth floors. He also has hay in the building on the right. We only went in the first door on the first floor. The milking is done in the extension out the back.)
The first floor of his barn where they milk the cows twice a day...(The milk is used to make cheese.)
Some of the milking equipment...
His sawmill....
He burns the "scraps" seen in the middle left of the picture when making the maple syrup...(We bought two pints of his maple syrup.)
His sugaring "house"...(where he makes the maple syrup - we didn't walk out to it.)
His house...
His wood furnace in the basement...(everyone burns a lot of wood in the wintertime.)
The Taftsville Covered Bridge...
and country store, established in 1840...
At the King Arthur Bakery, Cafe, Store, School in Norwich, VT...
This post is getting rather long so I will share one more place and then just write another post on Plymouth, VT, the birthplace of Calvin Coolidge.
The last place Sam and Eleanor took us before going to the bus station to catch a bus that would take us to the airport in Boston to fly back home to Kansas City was Quechee Gorge,Vermont's Little Grand Canyon. It is a beautiful site that unfortunately three or four men chose to end their lives (not at the same time) by jumping over the railing on the bridge since January. I couldn't help but be touched by the encouraging notes that have been left on the bridge. (I didn't photograph all of them.)
The view from one side...(looking down 165 feet to the Ottoquechee River)
The view from the other side...
Until the next time....(Plymount Notch and President Calvin Coolidge)
Check out the beautiful B & B (Bailey's Mills Bed & Breakfast, Reading, VT) that we stayed in and the recipe for her fabulous Blueberry Muffins HERE
Taking the bus seems to be just about the cheapest way to travel from Canada to Vermont (if you aren't driving your own car). The ride was very comfortable but I would strongly recommend that you not travel on a Sunday. I think everyone in Vermont had gone to Canada for the weekend and were returning back home on Sunday. We were traveling along making good speed until we got a mile or two (I really don't think it was much farther than that) from the border when we hit two lanes of traffic that was not generally moving at all (ever once in a while we would move an inch or two). We eventually came to an added lane on the left for buses. It felt so good to speed down that lane and drive by maybe 6 lanes now of backed up vehicles. Then we had to stop at the border because there was another motorcoach/bus stopped. I checked my watch and it had been one hour (yes, you read that right) one hour since we had come up on the backed up traffic. Well, we sat in our bus (at least the driver had left the engine running so it was cool in the bus) 45 minutes waiting for the bus load of Asians to be approved to enter the US. We couldn't believe it took so long and my husband said he thought maybe it was because they were Asians and maybe many didn't speak English and had trouble answering the questions we were asked. Well, imagine my surprise when everyone had finally gotten back on the bus and was ready to leave and I looked at my watch and it had taken us 1 hr and 15 minutes to clear. For whatever reason, they called 12 people on our bus back in a room to talk to them further and we had to wait on them. We never found out why they were held longer. Anyway, it took us 3 hours and 15 minutes to enter Vermont from Canada from the time we stopped for the traffic and then drove into Canada.
We were on interstate most of the time and it seemed to be lined with tall trees, but when we did come to a clearing, we usually saw a beautiful valley and a farm or two. I didn't manage to get any pictures because the clearing would come up on me too quickly to get my phone camera ready to take a picture.
Woodstock, VT
Sam and Eleanor do not live too far from Woodstock, VT so I took some picture there as we walked around the town. (Notice all of the beautiful flowers...we saw them everywhere we went while on our trip.)
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| Woodstock on the Green |
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| Woodstock Middle Bridge, 1969 |
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The church they attend in Springfield, VT...(Founded in 1843)
This is the Jenne Farm, in Reading, VT which is supposed to be the most photographed farms in the world (especially in the fall)...
Some more of the countryside. (my phone camera didn't do them justice)
I was disappointed to learn that when the maple trees are tapped to make maple syrup that they don't use the buckets anymore. They "tap" the tree with a plastic tube and the sap is "transported" through the tube.
They have a lot of dirt roads in Vermont...
Another covered bridge...
There are a lot of "small" dairy farms and ones that make cheese that is shipped all over the world. Tastes really great also...
I took these pictures in their milking barn...They weren't being milked at the time, just eating...
One afternoon we visited with a first cousin of Eleanor's who has 60 dairy cows, a saw mill, and his own sugaring place where he makes his own maple syrup.
His barn...(The younger cows utilize the second floor and he stores hay on the third and fourth floors. He also has hay in the building on the right. We only went in the first door on the first floor. The milking is done in the extension out the back.)
The first floor of his barn where they milk the cows twice a day...(The milk is used to make cheese.)
His sawmill....
He burns the "scraps" seen in the middle left of the picture when making the maple syrup...(We bought two pints of his maple syrup.)
His sugaring "house"...(where he makes the maple syrup - we didn't walk out to it.)
His house...
His wood furnace in the basement...(everyone burns a lot of wood in the wintertime.)
The Taftsville Covered Bridge...
and country store, established in 1840...
At the King Arthur Bakery, Cafe, Store, School in Norwich, VT...
This post is getting rather long so I will share one more place and then just write another post on Plymouth, VT, the birthplace of Calvin Coolidge.
The last place Sam and Eleanor took us before going to the bus station to catch a bus that would take us to the airport in Boston to fly back home to Kansas City was Quechee Gorge,Vermont's Little Grand Canyon. It is a beautiful site that unfortunately three or four men chose to end their lives (not at the same time) by jumping over the railing on the bridge since January. I couldn't help but be touched by the encouraging notes that have been left on the bridge. (I didn't photograph all of them.)
The view from one side...(looking down 165 feet to the Ottoquechee River)
Until the next time....(Plymount Notch and President Calvin Coolidge)
Check out the beautiful B & B (Bailey's Mills Bed & Breakfast, Reading, VT) that we stayed in and the recipe for her fabulous Blueberry Muffins HERE
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