So long, Vermont (and cheese and syrup and a tour of the State House)

Well, dear readers, I know you’ve been waiting to find out whether we made it to see the World’s Tallest Filing Cabinet in Burlington, Vermont.  We had some debate about whether we would attempt to see it the next morning because we had several other things on our agenda for the day, and it was located beyond where we needed to get on the highway.

We drive a Subaru Outback which we love.  In the early 2000’s, I had a conference in Oregon, and DH and our sons went with us.  While there, our rental car was a Subaru Outback.  DH had so much fun driving it and declared then that that would be the type of vehicle he wanted for our retirement years.  We’ve been driving Subarus since 2016 when we started with a Forrester but graduated to Outbacks by 2018 and 2019.  I’m telling you all this because whenever we travel, we always look for Subaru dealerships and let our cars say hello to their cousins.  I know, it’s silly – but on this trip, it seems like there have been Subaru dealerships in most of the cities and towns we’ve been in, and it seems that we always go by them.

Well, in Burlington, we had driven by several car dealerships but had not seen a Subaru one.  We thought there surely should be one in Burlington, especially after how many Subarus we saw driving around the city.  When I was getting our directions for the day, I happened to notice the Subaru dealership pop up on my Google Maps – and it was just two blocks from the World’s Tallest Filing Cabinet – and just five blocks past where we needed to be.  DH wasn’t crazy about it, but I told him we needed to drive by the Subaru dealership so Maisey (our car, she’s Amazing!) could say hi to her Vermont cousins.  And since we’d already be there, we should just go see the filing cabinet.

Y’all, this man loves me so much!  We drove by Subaru, beep-beeped, and then went to see the filing cabinet.  Obscure roadside attraction, check!

There aren’t many ways to go across the state of Vermont that don’t involve an interstate highway or an extra several hours.  So for this day, we started out taking the interstate over towards Montpelier in the middle of the state.  But before we could get to Montpelier, we had a very important stop- the Cabot Creamery store!  It didn’t open until 10:30 AM (thus creating time for us to go see the filing cabinet), so we were there right when it opened.  They had several cheeses set out for sampling along with some jam pairings.  We bought a couple of cheddars including one that is “private label” that has been aged for 16 years.

Next we drove into Montpelier, taking the state highway into town which led us right to State Street where the Vermont State Capitol building is.  It was so crazy that you could just pull up on the street in front of the Capitol, put a few quarters into the meter, and head on up the steps to go inside.  It was such a beautiful day and really gave the Capitol a chance to shine.  And the trees in the yard were beginning to change colors, too.

It’s important to note that our visit was on September 11^th.  When we got to the Capitol, a naturalization ceremony was happening, and there were several people who became U.S. Citizens while we were at the building.  That was very inspiring to see how excited these new citizens were!

The Vermont State House offers free guided tours on the hour, so we were there in time for the noon tour.  The guide talked with us about the history of the building and some of the more notable people who had passed through its doors.  She told us how there was a fire that was caused by the custodian not knowing how to vent and operate some of the heating components.  She showed us the picture of George Washington that was rescued from the fire.  We saw the statue of Ethan Allen.

After the tour, we drove a few miles out of town to visit Morse Farm Maple Sugarworks, a family owned and operated establishment that taps their trees and makes syrup.  They have a place where you can watch a video about the process and, if it’s during sugar season, you can watch an actual syrup-making demonstration.  You can also walk up into the woods where there are some trees that are tapped and see the rigging for getting the sap out pretty efficiently.

Morse Farm also has a store where they offer tastings of the syrup from the very light colored early sugar to the darker, richer flavored end of season syrup.  My favorite was an in-between flavor.  We bought some syrup from there even though we had gotten some at Shelburne Farms.

The best part of the store, though, was they serve maple creemees (and a few other flavors).  We each got one and then sat out on a swinging bench in the yard to enjoy the cooler air and sunshine along with this tasty treat!

By then it was getting near 3 PM and we still had a two hour drive to Lincoln, New Hampshire for the night.  We thought it was a nice way to say “so long” to Vermont.  While we weren't crazy about Burlington, we really did like the rest of the state that we saw.

Up next: Crossing New Hampshire, and DH gets his 50^th state.

~ Cindy D.