Central Vermont

After a peaceful evening at the Elk's in Rutland, Vermont we continued east. In the Killington, Vermont area I slammed on the brakes to investigate further the cows made from hay! There are 32 arrangements made from bales of hay for the Hay Festival. We found them scattered along several roads. How clever they are.
The bears seemed to be the most common although we saw a tiger, tinman, Pinocchio and more.

Then I had to brake hard and fast so as not to miss what turned out to be a wonderful farmer's market. The fridge is loaded with fresh vegetables. How about these swan neck gourds.

Woodstock received the acclaim in AAA that it is the prettiest town in Vermont. And it was most enjoyable. There are plenty of old houses dating to the early 1800s that delighted me. We had a really nice walk through the town. Later in Montpelier we were told that a bunch of rich snobs live there. Perhaps so!

On our way to Sugarbush Farm we went throuhf the Taftsville covered bridge built in 1836.

This calf would have liked for Leon to hang around longer.

The Belgian horses like crabapples and thought I might have some. At one time they were used to pull the wagon through the woods in March where the syrup buckets on 6,000 maple trees would be emptied into a large vat each day.

A visit to Sugarbush farm was a fun way to sample some maple syrup and cheese. This is the syrup house where the sap is cooked and turned into syrup. It takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of pure maple syrup.

A walk among the maples allowed us to see how they now run tubes through the trees rather than using the buckets as they once did. We met a woman here who was letterboxing, a hobby similar to geocaching but no gps required.

A few miles further east we came to the Quechee Gorge. The bridge is 165 feet above the Ottauquechee River.

We then continued further north traveling alongside the eastern boundary of the Green Mountain National Forest. The small two lane road provided us a broad array of colors even though it was misting rain most of the time. All flavors of sherbert came to mind: peach, lime, strawberry, raspberry, pineapple. We settled for the night at the Montpelier Elk's Country Club, high on a hill overlooking the golf course and distant mountains.