On The Road Again: The Green Mountain State

By: John Kumiski

Susan had said, "We should go to Vermont. I've never spent much time there." Not part of the plan, but a good idea. I always liked Vermont. Change the plan!

We crossed the border and went through customs at Rouses Point, New York. We had to laugh when the inspector (who had our passports in his hand) asked us, "How do you two know each other?" Susan and I met at a Janis Joplin concert in 1969 (we were both in high school), started dating in 1970, and got married on 1980. We go back a ways.

Apparently satisfied I wasn't smuggling a foreign national into the states, he let us enter. Almost immediately, we got on US 2, which would be a theme while we were in Vermont, and took the bridge across Lake Champlain into the Green Mountain State. We had a camping reservation at Grand Isle State Park, right on Lake Champlain!

Shoreline, Grand Isle State Park.

Along the way, we saw a sign for a farm stand. I expected it to be a short distance down the side road we took. I thought I messed up after a few minutes, and nearly turned around, when I saw another sign. We finally found the place, and bought freshly picked sweet corn, and green beans, and tomatoes, and a cucumber. Produce for dinner, yum! The farmer, a mature woman who had clearly been farming a long time, told us that Wally's Place was a restaurant that bought her produce and was a good place to eat. It turned out to be a hot tip- Wally's was great for breakfast and lunch.

Campsite found, I asked the ranger where I might find a place to watch the sunset. The park was right on the water, but it faced east. Hard to get sunset photos unless you're looking west. He suggested I try the town beach. We went looking for it.

Snow Farm Winery

I never found out if there was a town beach or not. There three days, we never found it. But we did find the Snow Farm Winery while looking for the beach. We stopped to sample their wares- dee-licious. As we enjoyed the wine and the afternoon, we could not help but notice an ever-increasing buzz of activity, and asked about it. Snow Farm Winery has been hosting a free concert on Thursday nights during the summer for 20 years. It was late Thursday afternoon, and they were prepping for the week's event. We had bread, and cheese, and fresh produce, and their only rule was no outside alcohol.

We picnicked while the band set up, eating and drinking and watching the field fill up with folks coming to watch the band. Blues for Breakfast celebrated the start of their fourth decade entertaining northern New England recently, and they appreciated being there as much as the audience did. We left after their first set, but the place was rocking, people dancing and having a fine time, very mellow and very cool. We felt so lucky to have stumbled onto this!

Blues for Breakfast, live!

Another day, another adventure. One of my headlights was out. I assumed I needed a new bulb. The nearest parts store was 40 minutes away, in Essex Junction. We went there and I bought the new bulbs, only to find out that the bulbs were not the problem. A waste of time and money, perhaps, but we used the laundromat and washed our clothes, and visited both a photography gallery and the Firebird Cafe for a great lunch. So not a total waste. But my headlight still doesn't work.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the state park. It's small, but a nice walk can be had along the shoreline between the boat ramp and the beach. We found a basket of free tomatoes and took a couple, silently thanking the generous donor. I decided to try to photograph the Milky Way that night.

After supper, we drove to nearby Sand Bar State Park. It has west-facing shoreline, so I could get a sunset photo. It also had more leopard frogs than I'd ever seen- they were everywhere! I photographed a big, old cottonwood tree, and then waited for the sunset and photographed that. Then that night, about 10:30 PM. I went and photographed the Milky Way over Lake Champlain. A good day's work, I thought.

Sunset from Sand Bar State Park.

I'd read about a fossil reserve. We went looking for it the next day, without sufficient information. It was a longer drive than I thought, but we eventually got there, to the Goodsell Ridge Fossil Preserve on Isle LaMotte. It's a tremendous place.

One of my favorite authors is John McPhee, and my favorite McPhee title is Annals of the Former World. This outstanding Pulitzer Prize winner is about geology, basically a history of our planet as read in North America's geologic story. McPhee is not a geologist, but he spent 20 years hanging out with several of the finest geologists in North America while researching this book.

Milky Way over Lake Champlain.

Now we're at Goodsell, and here are the fossils of one of the first coral reefs to appear in the oceans, 480 million years before the present, at least 150 million years before the dinosaurs appeared. When the fossilized creatures in these rocks were alive, there was no life on land yet. And the fossils are plentiful, and easy to find, and awesome. This an outdoor living museum, with plenty of signs explaining what you're looking at and how it fits in to the big picture of life on earth. We were so glad we went there, another highlight in a trip chock full of them.

Fossils at Goodsell Ridge Preserve.

We loved Grand Isle, but it was time to get moving again. Back on Route 2, we passed through Burlington. We passed the intersection with the Long Trail, a hiking trail that runs the length of Vermont. We stopped in Montpelier to find some lunch and wished we had more time to explore the town. We had a camping reservation at New Discoveries State Park, in the Grafton State Forest.

Susan on Owl's Head Trail.

We found our site early enough in the day to do a little exploring. The search for a good sunset spot failed, but we found a trail to the summit of Owl's Head.

I liked this area so much I considered staying another night and exploring some more. Then I thought, "You have a cabin reserved in Maine- do your exploring there." Good logic.

The next morning we got up, said goodbye to Vermont, traversed New Hampshire, and went to Lovell, Maine. The next month of our trip would not be on the road, not be spent sleeping in a van, but rather be spent in a rented house, on a pond, in Lovell.

Stay tuned.

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