50, baby!

The afternoon of the day we visited Fort Ticonderoga was a big day for us – because when we left from the Fort, we boarded the Fort Ti Ferry for an 8-minute crossing of Lake Champlain from New York to Vermont.  Vermont was DH’s 49th state, but for me, it was number 5-0!  That’s right, folks!  I achieved my goal of visiting all 50 states!   And entering Vermont by ferry just made it even more special.  We were the only ones on the ferry, and Captain Jack was so fun to celebrate with.  He pointed out where we would find the Vermont state line sign just after off-loading from the ferry.  It was a bit overgrown, but we stopped to get the picture of the sign anyway!

Captain Jack recommended that we stop at a nearby country grocery store and get a fresh homemade pie, so we did (blueberry).  DH has been eating on it for nearly a week now.  I can’t have any because of my celiac, but he’s been enjoying it.

We celebrated next by stopping in Vergennes, Vermont, for ice cream at lu∙lu ice cream shop.  This is a farm-to-scoop small batch ice cream store in Vermont’s oldest town.  They have a variety of flavors including Garden Basil which sounds weird as an ice cream flavor but was remarkably refreshing.  I also had another flavor called The Walking Dead; it had raspberries and chocolate and vanilla and marshmallows.  DH got the seriously chocolate, and it was seriously chocolate!  We had Vergennes on our itinerary because my hair stylist mentioned it to me several months ago.

From Vergennes, our next stop was the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory where we were in time for a tour.  It was really informative and so interesting to see the history and evolution of these well-loved bears and their friends as well as how they are carefully constructed and made by hand.  We got to watch several parts of the process as people were working.

One of the most interesting parts of the tour was seeing the Bear Hospital where Vermont Teddys that have had unfortunate mishaps are stitched up and repaired (or replaced, but usually with the original much-loved stuffing).  There is just one woman who does the Bear Hospital work and she’s been doing it for a long time – she took over after another lady retired.  The Vermont Teddy Bear company began in 1964.

Our last stop of the day before getting to the hotel was Shelburne Farms.  It had started raining before we got to the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory and had not let up when we were ready to go to the farm.  But really we were just interested in going to the Farm Store to buy some Vermont cheese and syrup.  So weather didn’t really matter!  We bought both cheese and syrup.  The cheese has been so good!  We had read before traveling that Shelburne Farms was a great place in the Burlington area to get both cheese and syrup.

It was still raining when we checked into our hotel in South Burlington, so we decided to just have cheese for dinner.  Okay, we had a few other things from the cooler with it, but the cheese was the highlight!  A nice 6-month aged Vermont cheddar.  We also bought a year-old one for later.  (And on another day in another place, we bought private-label 16 year aged cheese, but that’s for another blog post.)

Up next:  We spent two nights in Burlington, with a full day’s agenda for the next day.

~ Cindy D.