Summer in New England - Road Trip 2012 - Day 6

We woke up at our campsite at Gold Brook and broke camp. Repacking the car was a great investment of time and everything fits very nicely now. I have a slight coffee/caffine addiction so our next stop was Black Cap Coffee Roasters in Stowe, VT. Excellent atmosphere and even better coffee. We recharged a few batteries, wrote a few words, and knitted a few rows and soon hit the road again. We were off to Montpelier, VT. The smallest state capitol in the US. With 8,000 people, Montpelier was a great size. It had an abundance of bookstores in old creaky buildings, coffee shops, bakeries and interesting local shops. We visited two book stores, Bear Pond Books and Rivendell Books and then the local yarn store, the Knitting Studio. We talked to a couple of locals and got advice of places to visit on our journey. We also stopped in at La Brioche, a bakery that is staffed by the culinary students that learn in the same building. They had windows into the kitchen so you could see the pastry chefs to be working hard. Next we attempted to visit a local fiber farm, The Wool Shed, but no one was home so down the back roads of Vermont we went to the Morse Farm Maple Sugarworks. Its not sugaring time at the farm right now so we did not get to see the big evapaporator working, but we did get to watch an interesting video made the the 7th generation of sugar farmers there and enjoy a sampling of the different grades of male syrup they produce. We bought a few candies and some syrup in the gift shop. It was a lovely place and we could see how every season brought its own unique beauty that part of the woods. The speed limits in Vermont are quite slow by Arkansas standards on the highway 50 mph is your max and all of the little towns have are 30 mph so our next stop though only 20 miles away, it took more than half an hour to get there! Cabot Creamery Co-op was our next adventure. Some of the 30ish varieties of Cabot Cheeses, some of the best in the world, are produced in this plant as well as Greek yogurt, dips, yogurt, and sour cream. We were able to take a tour of the facilities and watch the plant at work. We bought a lunch of cheese and bread and yogurt as we left and we can definitely say that the products were amazing. Soon after visiting Cabot, we were leaving the state of Vermont. Into New Hampshire and a new adventure to find a new airmattress and travel the Kancamangus Highway. We found a Wal-Mart just across the line in Littleton, NH (yay Arkansas Industry!) and then after many warnings to watch out for moose, we entered the White Mountain National Forest on the Kancamangus Highway. It was quite the scenic drive and we enjoyed watching out for moose, bears, and other wild life. We set camp at the Passaconaway Campground on the far side of the watershed divide and were promptly attacked by hundreds of the largest mosquitos we have seen since visiting Crater Lake 2 years ago (when there was 6 foot of snow on the ground) We did not see much of the camp because of this and spent the evening inside our tent to escape the bugs. We are excited about entering Maine tomorrow and seeing the Atlantic Ocean!

  Here's today's pictures!