Vermont

As we traveled from the Maine coast through New Hampshire and into Vermont, we crossed over the Appalachian Trail several times.  I would have liked to have stopped and did some hiking on it, but we were on a tight schedule.  We took a two lane road most of the way, instead of following the GPS route that was mostly interstate.  It was a beautiful drive through the mountains and the quaint villages.  Each village has a town green and a steepled church just like in the calendar pictures.  We arrived in Castleton Saturday evening just in time for the Clarendon Church's Sunday School picnic evening meal at Lake Bomoseen.

After the picnic, we stopped at a small farm owned by a church member (Old Gates Farm) and bought some maple syrup to take home with us.
We stayed with Phil and Sara on their beautiful Vermont farm.  It is a mixture of pasture, cropland, and timber.  I got to help Phil a little bit with his calves, and he gave me a tour of the farm and farmstead.

Sunday we attended the Clarendon church which meets in the Grange Hall.  We enjoyed meeting the small group that worships there, along with the visitors that were there from Rockville.

After church, we changed clothes and were back on the road again.
We made a pilgrimage to The Vermont Country Store, a famous mail order catalog store.  I don't think we ended up buying anything there!

It was raining Monday when we stopped in Plymouth Notch, the birthplace and boyhood home of  Calvin Coolidge.  The town is unchanged and preserved from when he was sworn in as our 30th President in 1923.  The site encompasses 600 acres and 12 or 13 buildings.  Calvin moved away to attend college and then entered a law practice in Massachusetts before getting involved in politics.  But, he continued to come home regularly to Plymouth Notch to spend time in the family home and work on the farm until his death in 1933.  Calvin's dad and some other dairy farmers started a cheese factory in the Plymouth Notch in 1890.  It is the second oldest cheese factory in America, and it still makes cheese today with the 1890 recipe.  We bought some to bring home with us.

The summer White House in the dance hall above the Coolidge Store.

The Coolidge family still has two houses and a farm on the outskirts of Plymouth Notch.

Coolidge is buried in a very simply marked grave in the town cemetery.

Our next stop was Hildene, the Lincoln family estate.  Robert Lincoln was Abraham Lincoln's only child who survived to adulthood.  He was a Captain in Grant's army, a lawyer in Chicago, Secretary of War in two administrations, Ambassador to the U.K., and finally the President of the Pullman Car Company.  Robert purchased a large acreage in the Southern Vermont mountains and built a home there. The last of Abraham Lincoln's descendants died there in 1978, and the house is now open to the public.  It is still furnished with Lincoln family furniture and belongings.  There is also a fully restored Pullman Palace car on display on the property.

The beautiful Vermont countryside on a foggy, rainy day.

In Manchester, we made a stop at the Orvis flagship store.  They are a famous fly fishing and outfitting company.  Their products were a little pricey for us, so we didn't spend any money there.  They had indoor and outdoor trout ponds, a fly fishing school, and a rod and reel factory on the premises.

Vermont and New Hampshire are dotted with covered bridges.  We managed to see three of them in Vermont before we started heading back West.

As we traveled toward home across Western New York, we followed the Erie Canal off and on, and crossed it a time or two.  Here is one of the lock and dams on the canal that we saw at a park/rest area.

A map of our travels through the North East.

As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.
Proverbs 25:25

And carry these ten cheeses unto the captain of their thousand, and look how thy brethren fare, and take their pledge.
1 Samuel 17:29