Photo: Sugar Hill Community Church
Day 6: 09/30/22
- Waterbury to St. Albans via the scenic route through Newport and beyond.
- About 150 miles today in NW VT. All scenic; the trees are more “turned” up here than in middle VT. Left the hotel about 10am.
- First up was the Gold Brook Covered Bridge. Located just south of Stowe it’s a beautiful old covered bridge and well worth the stop.
- Continued north on hwy 100 to the Coventry/Orne Covered Bridge in Irasburg, VT. The drive up to Orne bridge was very scenic with some glowing occurring on the trees. NOTE:: Always get off the main roads and drive the county roads as the scenery is overall much better in my opinion. We met a nice couple at the bridge while I was searching for the perfect picture. We ended up tramping through the grass to get the shot we wanted while Lisa and her husband talked. She shared that she was a lab manager and was the youngest of 10 kids, (she’s now 63). All this tramping around made her feel like a kid again and it did me too! Good memories! By the way she also loves Costco just like Lisa! So her hubby and I just watched them both as they did their Costco talks… The husband owned his own welding supply business. Very cool methodology they use. Each year they draw a state out of a hat and then go there on vacation. Neat idea! Chatted with a couple locals that were taking a walk and learned it gets mighty cold (as in -20 degrees) in those parts in the winter. BRrrrrrr.
- Onward to Lord’s Creek Covered Bridge. Short distance and nice bridge however I didn’t find it to be worth the trip. Did take some cool pictures of maple syrup tubing on the way. I always find it fascinating how they feed it all together into the holding tanks so they can evaporate it down to syrup.
- Onward to Newport to park and try some cider. Well, almost try some cider that is. Parked downtown and walked to Eden Specialty Ciders only to discover they were closed due to COVID. Nice consolation prize though is about 10 yards from where we parked they were having a sidewalk clothes sale. I picked up a preowned coat and pair of insulated coveralls for $9 total. SWEET! Lisa found a couple other items also for $3 each…What a deal! After our shopping adventure we were hungry so had a quick bite at the Newport Natural Market. Quick sandwich and on our way. Sandwich was good however try a different spot next time for variety. Overall impressed with Newport. Seemed like a really nice, fun town to spend some time in. You could walk by the lake, take boat rides, ride on 4 wheel drive tours, and much more. Happening place! Next time I’d plan on staying the night there.
- Left Newport and west to St. Albans. Most of the time we were just a few miles from the Canadian border. Lots of beautiful scenery that was highly agricultural. Our route was Newport, Richford, East Franklin, Franklin, St. Albans, Morses Line. Keep your eyes on the road! Had an otter with a fish in his mouth run directly across the road in front of us. Other cool things was a pumpkin patch that a farmer was getting ready to open. He had made a wooly mammoth and giant pumpkin out of straw; not sure what else he was working on as we didn’t stop but super cute!!!!
- Arrived at St Albans about 5pm and checked into the Hampton Inn. Feeling hungry we drove to the Thai House Restaurant for dinner. The garlic duck was amazing (YUM) while the massaman curry was average.
- Drove around a bit after dinner to explore the area. Super funny side story. We decided to turn around and pulled into a driveway that looked deserted however it turned out it was a staging area for a parade they were getting ready to have. Everyone was a good sport though when we asked them how to get out of the road. They realized we weren’t local and got a good laugh out of the process. Once we got turned around we hurried back around the block and to the hotel to park (took about 10 minutes) so we could watch the parade go by. Imagine our surprise that there were already done by then!! What a quick parade it ended up being. Anyway we walked around town some more and called it a night.







Day 7: 10/01/22
- We were getting tired of the hotel breakfasts by now so thought we’d grab some breakfast across the street at Catalyst. We should have stayed with the Hampton breakfast in my opinion. Long wait for very mediocre food.
- Short day today as only did about 110 miles.
- First road stop of the day was the Bridge of Flowers & Light in Enosburg Falls, VT. Nice bridge.
- There to the Longley Covered Bridge about 10 miles to the east.
- From Longley to the West Hill Covered Bridge (my favorite bridge). Very scenic location and pretty bridge. Don’t trespass here by going walking for a better camera shot.
- From the West Hill Covered Bridge we took the Mountain Loop Road over the mountain to get a quick sandwich at Irving Oil in Bakersville. Pro tip: Don’t go on any road labeled Mountain Loop Road in a minivan! Very tough road that we really had no business on at all without it being a high clearance vehicle.
- Sandwich was… well a sandwich at Irving Oil and then on to lots more scenic driving to Boyden Valley Winery and Spirits in Cambridge where we did a wine tasting. The wine was ok however the Glögg was awesome. Ice wine was pretty good also but not an Inniskillin, but then what really is but Inniskillin. lol
- More driving to the Cider Mill which is located in the Hudak Farm Stand & Greenhouse. Beautiful woodwork around the place (was everywhere, even the trim on the barn). Cool pumpkins to pick from, cold cider and homemade cider donuts made this a special stop.
- From there we drove up to Stanton to look around and took South River Street down to highway 38 and then out to St Albans Harbour and then back to the Hampton for the evening. Beautiful scenery on the drives today. Lisa wasn’t feeling well this evening so we thought we’d watch the Aggie football game on my laptop while at the hotel. Sadly they lost to Mississippi.
- Bonus for us was that Alexandria had gotten her Aggie ring earlier today and wanted to FaceTime us when she opened it. Daniel and Olivia were at a concert in Dallas so they were unable to attend. Man, did that ring look soooooo good on her finger!!! So proud of her!!!!! Next part not quite so good though… Ends up she had gotten a bite on her shin earlier in the week but hadn’t thought much about as it just itched for a minute or two and then was gone. She had hit her shin just before we FaceTimed, looked at it and wow! Thank goodness she talked about it with us. It was huge, black and not good at all. Ends up she was bitten by a Brown Recluse spider! Thank goodness she was able to Uber to Urgent Care and get treated that same evening. They gave her a whopping dose of Rocephin antibiotic and then some oral clindamycin to take for 10 days. If not better by morning go to the ER as they’ll had to debride it… Thankfully it was much better by morning so no ER trip. Follow back up with Urgent Care later in the week to validate all healing correctly with no pocketing of the wound and life was better for Alexandria!!!







Day 8: 10/02/22
- Another short but fun day. About 135 miles today. We drove from St Albans to the Fairfield in White River Junction where we would be staying for the next 5 nights.
- Remembering our lesson from the previous night we had a quick breakfast at the Hampton and hit the road to Vergennes Falls Park. Cool place; the pictures we took there do not do it justice.
- From Vergennes we drove to Bristol Falls and a very cool but super short hike. The falls were very small but very pretty.
- Next was lunch at The Rochester Cafe & Country Store; mushroom soup for the soup of the day and a sandwich. Ok… the mushroom soup was outstanding as in some of the best I’ve ever had in my life. The sandwich’s were also very good and very large. We each ate 1/2 a sandwich and then had the other half for dinner that evening at the hotel.
- After lunch we drove into Quechee and took a short walk around the square. The Quechee Covered Bridge was there and the Simon Pearce Mill & Glass Blowing Studio was all right there. The bridge was rebuilt in 1972 so it’s a pretty recent addition. Super cool as the glass blowing studio had a water turbine generator they had restored so they got all their power from them, and you could look at it all. Even better if you like glasswork they had their glass working factory open to the public so you could observe them blowing the glass from scratch and then go upstairs to their storeroom to purchase. When we were there, they had 3 young men working in there.
- Afterwards we did a quick tasting at Whistlepig Whiskey Parlour’s tasting room which was only about a block away. Lisa liked the15 year Estate Rye the best. I liked the 18-year-old Double malt Rye the best although it was still a little spicy for me. They didn’t have any of the Boss Hog to try as new edition coming out in the next 10 days so no samples of it for now! As a side note since I’ve been back I’ve had the pleasure of tasting WhistlePig 18-year-old Double Malt Rye Barrel Select 3rd edition and let me tell you. It’s sooooo smooth! If you ever get a chance get a taste; you won’t regret it!
- Back to the hotel for evening.






Day 9: 10/03/22
- Noisy night as was a problem with the AC/Heater in the room. Kept making a noise every 3 hours or so. Front desk was awesome and had maintenance fix the problem so no more issue the rest of the nights.
- First stop is everyone’s favorite, the King Arthur Baking Company. Yummy as always and plenty of baking supplies for the enterprising chief and tasters of the house.
- Leaving there we drove up to Franconia to leaf peep and lo and behold what did we see but the Garnett Hill Outlet Store. One quick U-turn later and clothes shopping we went. Even I have to admit that it was a pretty cool place. Lots of cashmere and good quality. After a few I did leave Lisa there to shop in peace while I walked down to Franconia Coffee House (only about 0.1 miles away) to grab something to drink. I got an UBE latte; yes that is correct, it’s not a misspelling and yes, it was incredibly good!!!! Kinda nutty, not to sweet, little vanilla flavor and kinda purplish colored. It fit well into the latte. Next time I’ll try it with oat milk to add just a hint more sweetness. Quick walk back to Garnet Hill Outlet to get Lisa and her finds of the day.
- Back tracked a smidge to the Sugar Hill Community Church for a spectacular picture of a red maple by the church and then on to Cooley-Jericho Community Forest trailhead where we did a short hike and picnicked with our sandwiches from King Arthur this morning. The trail was recommended by the sales lady at Garnett and she picked a wonderful trail for us. The drive to it was gorgeous and the trail itself was beautiful.
- After the hike we followed highway 302 through Crawford Notch around to North Conway then took highway 112 (the Kancamungus Highway) over to Lincoln. Drove from there over to Waterville Valley and then back through Campton, Plymouth, Rumney, Canaan, Enfield, Lebanon, to the Fairfield in White River Junction.
- Now, let’s talk leaves! Crawford Notch was vibrant oranges and yellows with some reds mixed in. Very nice! Sugar Hill was very red and orange and also very nice! Waterville Valley was REALLY nice with vibrant yellow, orange, and red leaves everywhere. The trees there were delightful; the trailers there not so much…lol
- Lastly, wild turkey everywhere today. We’ve seen some here and there throughout the trip but wow…. they were everywhere we went today. Beautiful to look at and now Lisa wants turkey for dinner!
- About 175 miles today before we got back to the hotel for the night.






Day 10: 10/04/22
- Short day today so we could come back and do laundry and rest so only about 80 miles today. We drove up to Darmouth College in Hanover, NH to look at the campus and town. Nice town with a nice vibe.
- From there down to Fairlee and stopped at Chapman’s General Store to grab some souvenirs, cider, etc. Cool as it used to be an old pharmacy with the lady working the store being related to the original pharmacist owners.
- Crossed back into White River Junction and got lunch sandwich makings at Jake’s Quechee Market. Nice stop, good selection and quick in and out. Drove from there just a short distance and over the Gorge. Were also a couple of covered bridges on the way to the town of Woodstock, VT but we’d seen so many by then we didn’t stop for pictures.
- Woodstock was a really cool place. Loved the vibe of the town and it seemed pretty authentic and happening. Also, pretty busy. Definitely would like to stay there one day.
- Back to the hotel about 1pm to get the laundry done, folded and put away. Dinner was from C&S Pizza. Meat pizza was good as was the Greek Salad and garlic bread. I didn’t care for the baklava though as I thought it was a little dry and not too much flavor but to each their own tastes!



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