Friday, August 22, 2008

Up the Champlain Valley




Up The Champlain Valley

Monday, August 11
Crossing the Vermont border at Jacksonville is like slipping in Vermont’s back door.
The road from Colrain, Ma. is lined with orchards and cornfields. This swath of hilltowns between Route 2 in Mass. And Route 9 in Vermont is some of the most interesting backcountry in New England. Figuring there would be no place to eat between there and Bennington, I stopped at Pine Hill Orchards (Colrain, Ma.) and had the yummy house chicken salad with apples and walnuts.

Of course it turned out that there’s a new places to eat in Jacksonville. Valbert’s Diner was jammed and, according to Connie Burnell at Stone Soldier Pottery, serves good food. Connie is the widow of Robert Burnell, founder to the pottery 40 years ago. Their daughter carries on the tradition of stone-fierd lamps, vases, mugs, etc., all with deeply colored glazes.
Connie was a font of local gossip, notably about Honora, the winery that’s opening in the wilds of neighboring Halifax. Juicy stuff!


I continued to take the road less traveled, up through Whitingham—where the stone marker still stands on the site of Brigham Young’s birthplace. It’s engraved: “born on this sport in 1801….a man of much courage and superb equipment.”(this Mormon founding father also fathered 56 children).

Readsboro is even deeper into the boonies, a town that boomed in the 1890s as the terminus of the Hoosuc Tunnel & Willmington RR and home of a major “chair factory, the source of folding chairs for innumerable public halla. The story is told in the town historical society, which luckily, Betty Bolognani had opened for locally connected visitors.
Betty’s family had run the Readsboro Inn for 70 years but had recently sold it to two guys. I checked it out and the restaurant looks cheerful while the (separate) bar room is obviously the center of town. Readsboro is one of those low rent places that’s attracted a number of artists who hold occasional open studios. In the one Main Street studio that’s open regularly Mary Angus blows and molds exceptional glass perfume bottles and the like and William LeQuier creates amazing glass sculpture.


I reached Bennington after 3pm and spent a good hour in The Bennington Museum, best known for its collection of Grandma Moses paintings but worthwhile on a number of counts.

Then came a downpour, which I weathered in Bennington Potters, housed in the same picturesque grist mill it began in 60 years ago but with the pottery now set off by extensive furniture and furnishings, candles and other enticing things to buy.



On to North Bennington and The Henry House, an 18th century home in which I was the night’s only guest. It’s a lovely place but was a bit spooky and Kevin’s, the local eatery was so packed that I had to eat at the bar, surrounded by locals and feeling painfully out of it until a regular named Harry started telling me his life’s story. Only too late did I learn that the reasonably priced and attractive “lounge” at Pangea, otherwise the pricy place in town, was open and I looked fabulous. Not that I really want to knock Kevin’s. The salmon was good.

Tuesay, August 12
I immediately got bogged down at Taraden, another lovely B&B up the road, then strolled around the village of North Bennington. Powers Store is definitely the place I should have eaten a couple weeks when I ended up here famished and got a sandwich—then was stuck in the rain—at the town’s other (real) general store. Powers offers tables and quiche. Eddington House (next to Kevin’s) seems like a great B&B and the innkeeper was a trove of info, pointing me to Mile Around Woods Trail through field and forest, also to Lake Parlan (swimming and fishing)



and telling me about the Moses Farm (as in Grandma Moses) which offers PYO and a gallery showing works by Will Moses.

Back in downtown Bennington I snooped the Main Street shops


between downpours, stopped by the Bean & Leaf to check my email with Chai and a bagel and filled up at Hemmings Sunoco. Unfortunately it was raining too hard to park and explore its museum.

I had meant to spend a couple hours in Manchester but it was already 1pm as I zipped up Route 7 and I took the bypass. Checking the map, I was puzzled by why the absence of exits beyond E. Dorset. It turns out that’s where the highway ends, turning back into plain old Route 7. The gracious-looking old inn in this small village turns out to be the birthplace of Bill Wilson, founder of AA. It’s now run by volunteers and geared to members.

I was heading for the Someday Café in Danby but turns out that it’s closed on Tuesday. I bought a sandwich at the general store and ate it on the cafe’s terrace,
Danby is a big antiques center with some fine furniture in the 1820 House of Antiques and 25 dealers in The Vermont Wreath Company, among others. I don’t know what to make of The Rooster Man.

Next up Route 7 is Wallingford, with crafts shops and galleries. Rout 140 runs west through humped hills to Tinmouth. It began to pour again and my cell didn’t work but I was determined to find Twin Mountains Farm in Middletown Springs. I got directions at the general store and, after a forever ride out a dirt road, it was worth the effort. On to the The Inn at Rutland – which is a very comfortable spot too. For a second night, however, I found how much I hate eating alone. This time it was at Little Harry’s, a great place if you are there with someone.


Wednesday, August 13

I love sharing a breakfast table with a stranger. This morning it was an “energy consultant” from Houston who works for one for the big Wall Street brokerages and deals in coal and oil. The Northeast, he tells me, is at the wrong end of the pipe line and will be hardest hit this winter. We have no refineries and just a couple nuclear power plants. Coal is his answer…


I walked the downtown Rutland walk but the “visitors center” in the middle of the city is unmanned, the chamber director won’t talk to me and nothing really good here is obvious. The Amtrak station is also unmanned. The Chaffee Art Center is far less of interesting than in the past and clearly hurting (no director). My one interesting discovery was Michael’s, The Vermont Country Toymaker at 64 Merchants Row.

Owner Michael (he won’t give his last name) makes all the wooden rocking cows, trains, etc. that fill the place and, best of all, are the locally painted and ingenious small stocking stuffers.

The Vermont Marble Exhibit in Proctor
was a very pleasant surprise Housed in one of the old marble sheds on Otter Creek, it’s a delight from the moment you enter under a monolithic marble arch and cross railroad tracks to the front door, then climb marble steps to a grand marble hall. A small sign requests that you to check in at the gift store to pay, but you don’t have to. A film tells the story of the marble boom, bust and current status in Vermont. You learn that one major underground quarry is still worked in Danby. There’s also an amazing “Hall of Presidents”


with sculpted impressions by local sculptor Renzo Palmerini. There also plenty of other exhibits and the gift shop is a great source of items made from Vermont—and other—marble. I bought a cheese knife.

Starved as usual in the wrong place (the café at the Exhibit has been replaced with wine tasting) I stopped by the general store in Proctor and picked up a macaroni salad. At the next stop—Wilson’s Castle (otherwise a rip-off at $10 per adult; it’s all about renting the place for weddings) I managed to picnic.


On to Castleton and then south to Poultney where I stopped at the Red Brick Mill, seemingly super destination dining. Then it started to pour. First the sky turned a nasty black and—just as Rte. 221 cut into New York on the way back up to Fairhaven—it let loose with a vengeance. I stopped for a while and watched other vehicles whiz by, finally started up again and found my tires barely connecting with the hardtop. It was scary! The Maplewood, a b&b south of Fairhaven was’nt welcoming but at least it was dry.

Fairhaven was interesting with its grand square, but it was still pouring. I valiantly checked out a b&b at which no one was home and gratefully headed east on Rte. 4, which here is a major highway. By the time I exited at Castleton the rain had stopped and I could appreciate the view of Lake Bomoseen from the Lake House Pub & Grill,



already wishing this was my last stop, but on to the Hubbardston Battlefield site of a 1777 battle, the only one of the Revolution actually fought in Vermont. It’s a beautiful place!!


According to the map, I was now almost in Brandon, if only I took the right dirt roads.
Unfortunately I got totally turned around and ended back on Route 4, meaning I had to circle all the way back through Rutland and the north on Route 7 to Brandon. When I finally reached The Old Mill, my b&b, mine host sympathetically confided that’s he had made the same mistake the first time he tried to get to Brandon from Hubbardston..

Finally the sun appeared and my room was a beauty, with windows and a balcony overlooking surrounding greenery. Back at the Brandon green this was the night of a corn fest, with a band in the gazebo and couples dancing in the street.

I bought the yummiest ear of grilled corn I’ve ever tasted, served on a stick that made it easy to rub in a tub of butter. Dinner was around the corner at the Watershed, overlooking the waterfall in the middle of Brandon. With WiFi I could check my email while sipping ale and waiting for a ham and cheese strudel.

Thursday, August 14
Brandon only gets better. I snooped the other inns and b&bs and the morning went quickly.


After an exceptionally creamy quiche at Gourmet Provence, I headed west to Larabee’s Point, one of narrowest points on Lake Champlain and site of the Fort Ti ferry (to Fort Ticonderoga). This ferry has been in existence, one way or another, since the 18th century.


Finally the sun was shining and it was hot. At neighboring Teachout’s Store, the operations base for Carillon Cruises, I changed into lighter duds.

A mile from Larabee’s Point a picturesque red farmhouse overlooks Lake Champain and the “open” flag is usually out, welcoming you to Norton Latourelle’s gallery, a menagerie of appealing wooden dogs, cats, rabbits and much more. Norton’s bread and butter has become commissioned portraits of pets but he still finds plenty of outlets for whimsy.



On the way to Shoreham I was stopped by cows crossing the road. Hooray!


This still happens in Vermont. This is gorgeous country with the Adirondacks to the West and the Green Mountains to the East. The Shoreham Inn looks as great as ever andnow offers an English pub. I checked out another b&b and headed for Fairy Tale Farm in Bridport. What a beauty! Just two rooms but each is about as nice as they can be with windows everywhere, balconies, books and plenty of space, views.

On to Chimney Point at the Lake’s other narrows, this one bridged by the Lake Champlain Bridge

-- better known as the Crown Point Bridge, confusing because Crown Point is in NY. Too many “points”.

The “Chimney” here, Vermont historian Elsa Gilbertson tells me, alludes to all that was left of the French colony on this site after the British burned it in 1748. One of Vermont’s under-appreciated historic sites, the 1780s brick tavern here houses the state’s largest display of native Indian artifacts (some dating back 7500 years),most found around this site. Elsa shows me how to throw an Atlatle – an ancient arrow launcher that’enjoyed a recent revival in Vermont. In September this is the site of an Atlatl competition.
I love this place (see the opening picture to this blog): the exhibits, the rockers on the porch and the fact it was falsely promoted for a century as the tavern in which Ethan Allen and Seth Warner planned the siege on Fort Ticonderoga. I supped next door at The Bridge restaurant (friendly and good comfort food but I shouldn’t have ordered the stir fry) and headed back to Bridport to watch the weekly auction under the tent. The big attraction was listening to auctioneer Tom Broughton. Back to Fairy Tale Farm for a lovely night.


Friday, August 15, Middlebury
Approaching Middlebury from the West, the buildings of Middlebury College, one of the country’s oldest (founded 1800) and most prestigious, are the first thing you see in this town, which rise ein tiers. The Addison County C of C is sited on the top tier and I narrowly missed a police car on the way into its lot. It stopped and lights flashed but the officer obviously decided I was just a dumb tourist and not worth his trouble.

Lots of help at the C of C, a dizzying amount of information. Again the skies were darkening so I raced to do my walk-a-bout, down along the shops around the State Crafts Center at Frog Hollow


and then across the footbridge to the former marble works on the opposite bank, now filled with restaurants and a great spot from which to see the wide waterfall that once powered many mills. Ialso checked out the Sheldon Museum.
Right off the bat I’d run into a nice guy from California carrying my book and I had to tell him—which made it awkward as I kept running into him all morning.


All the restaurants were crammed because (as my fan informed me) this was graduation day for summer language programs at The College. I tried to sit down at Tully and Marie’s but after a15-minute wait without ordering (I was assured it would be quick) I gave up and moved on, finally trying the bar at Dario’s because no one was in there. More waiting and nerves. When my wrap finally came I asked them to make it to go so I could eat half later—and then forgot it until I pulled out, then couldn’t find a parking another space.

The only downside about Middlebury is the parking and it turns out some of the most interesting shopping—Danforth Pewter, Otter Creek Brewer, Beau Ties, Vermont Soap, Gieger and more—are all just out of downtown with plenty of parking. This is also the way to the UVM Morgan Horse Farm in Weybridge.



It was way past 3 and the thought of the 3-hour drive home loomed as I checked stuff south on Route 7, then ended up at a closed road on the far side of Lake Dunmore, finally stopping at Churchill House after 4 and having to forgo Blueberry Hill and other places deeper into Goshen. Over the Brandon Gap and then Roxbury Mt., into Bethel, down I-89 and home. I just \managed it escape up to bed before son Tim and daughter-in-law Yuko arrived with our two grandchildren—4-year old Taiga was wide awake.

Saturday was great fun with family


but Sunday I was sicker than I’ve ever been.
What a relief to be able to write again but I’m still wiped out from a bout with a viral bug. I can’t ever remember having a headache like that—all day—which with my other symptoms was initially diagnosed over the phone as meningitis but happily turned out to be far less serious! Thank goodness it didn’t happen at a B&B…

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