Day 3: Bennington to Quechee, Vermont

Omg we had the best (and very full) day yesterday! We really only have a couple days in Vermont, so I wanted to soak it up.

Prepare for photo bomb…. In a bit of a hurry so not much time to edit!!

Highlights:

* continental breakfast outside at our inn. Such a gorgeous morning.

* Back up to Bennington Battle Monument so we could go to the top! We got there right when it opened and had the place to ourselves. Yay! Beautiful views from the top and interesting history.

* From there, we walked a couple blocks down a beautiful, old, tree lined street to the Old First Church and cemetery. A historical church in Vermont and the burial site of poet Robert Frost! What views. I loved the white steeple church. I was dreaming of how this would look in the fall with red and orange leaves.

* Next we started on a “covered bridges” driving tour that I had planned out. There are old covered bridges all over Vermont, but I had 5 on my list in the region to stop at. I LOVED THIS!! There were only a couple people at each bridge, if any (most were empty). It was hot and sunny and beautiful. The boys went down to play in the river at each one. So much fun!

* Paper Mill Village Bridge

* One of the kids’ favorite… Henry Burt Covered Bridge. Has a great area for playing in the water and skipping rocks. We had to drag the boys out to keep moving after 45 minutes.

* Arlington Green Covered Bridge was my favorite. It is located in the most beautiful place ever. Mountains in the distance, red barns and horses, white church steeple and an old New England home (painter Norman Rockwell’s home!) just up the way.

Picnic lunch here was amazing in the shade.

* Final bridge stop was Chiselville Bridge. Couldn’t go down to the river on this one, though.

* After the unofficial bridge tour, we drove toward Manchester, Vermont. We stopped at the Sugar Shack, a well known/local shop specializing in homemade maple syrup and other treats made on site. I sampled various types of maple syrup. Yummy.

They also have a Norman Rockwell exhibit with prints all of his artwork. I didn’t know much about him, but they had a 15 minute video out in the shed and it was super interesting!! I am really happy we did this.

* Then we stopped in Manchester, a cute Vermont town… it’s a bit more upscale/full of designer shops, etc. We were running low on time, so we just took a peek and stopped in a cool old bookstore that was on my list.

* We took scenic route 7A to scenic bypass 100 through Vermont north. After Manchester we stopped in Weston, to try to fit in the big Vermont Country Store before they closed at 6.

The store was huge, and the boys stocked up on a bunch of bags of candy and other goodies. It was a fun place to look around with tons of random stuff for sale. (Like the Cracker Barrel country stores, but way bigger and better!)

* We ran out of daytime hours by this point 🙂 We swung through Woodstock, which is known as the most “quintessential New England town”. We didn’t even stop though, as it was getting late.

Beautiful drives all day through the Green Mountains.

* Finally made it to our stopping point of Quechee, Vermont by 7:30 in time for dinner at a restaurant next to our hotel (also the only place in town open past 7 pm!!! Impression so far is that New England is not really a hot spot for nightlife 😉

Whew! What a day. I loved everything. I feel like it was a great sampling of Vermont. What a beautiful state.

Daily gratitude: I am grateful to the manager of the restaurant for fitting us in.. we got there close to closing time and they almost turned us away, but she made an exception and let us stay. 🙂