Day Drives in Vermont - Simon Pearce
The 'One and Only Brattleboro' is a destination in and of itself, but the icing on the cake is that it is within a couple hours of, well, basically everything!
Montreal and New York City are both about four hours away. Two and a half hours gets you to the Maine coast. Two hours gets you to Boston...though why you'd want to drive there, I haven't the foggiest... (The traffic - I'm talking about the traffic - Go Sox....)
As the innkeeper I am (by choice) semi-chained to this old house, but I find pockets of time here and there to play hooky, and when that happens I almost inevitably end up jumping in the car and taking a road I've never taken before to explore the treasures within a two hour radius of Brattleboro.
Yesterday I treated myself to lunch. In Quechee... sitting at a window seat overlooking a covered bridge...and water roaring over a dam... sipping wine out of a sparkling blown glass goblet.
Sigh. I'm such a romantic.
The dining room at the Simon Pearce Mill is laid back and elegant, and serves gorgeous local fair done well. I had the Steelhead trout (looks like salmon, tastes like trout, I was confused, but that's ok), the cheese plate, and a slice of gooey and crispy bakewell tart for dessert.
Scrumptious.
Yep. That's all. I could carry on describing every detail of my lunch, but I'll let the pictures do the talking.
After that gorgeousness I browsed around the sparkling shop/showroom on the main floor, peeked downstairs at the glassblowing studio, then headed out into the (finally) warm spring day to drive the short distance to the Quechee Gorge.
Observe:
There's parking on both sides of the bridge, shops and a welcome center on the east side, and trails that lead down to the bottom where you can probably get even more epic shot than mine. I didn't go all the way down because I was wearing my Sunday-best like a smarty-pants, but it's not long nor terribly strenuous, and it runs through forest that looks like this:
Every time I walk through forests like this I remember how growing up I wished that I could learn how to sneak stealthily through the trees like the native Americans I was reading about...this may never happen. #bullinachinashop
After poking around a snagging a few Vermont road maps at the information center, I hopped back in the car and headed back the way I came - west towards Woodstock.
I failed to take any pictures because I was driving, and, well, they frown upon using handheld electronic devices while driving around here (and well they should!). But that's ok - just picture in your mind what you think every self-respecting New England town should look like and multiply that by every wedding day photo shoot you've seen in the last 5-7 years, and there you've got Woodstock, VT.
After circling through town a few times to make sure I took it all in (and to creep out that one lady sitting on her porch), I headed south on highway 102...because south takes me home...eventually. :)
102 between Woodstock and Springfield is apparently horse country, and it winds its way through a soul-soothing mix of forest, mountain, and rolling meadow. The precious little Shetland ponies nibbling grass a short distance from the road didn't hurt either.
Springfield was the next town I hit, and, though I didn't stop, I was interested by the old-school-river-industrial vibe of it...I'll check it out some other time.
After leaving Springfield I contemplated winding the rest of my way south on highway 5, but as I had maxed out my adventure quota for the day (didn't tell you about those 2-3 weird detours, did I?) I decided to shoot straight over to I-91 and cruise on down to Brattleboro.
Home Sweet Crosby House for a cup of tea on the deck to relax....and then some laundry...'cuz I don't want you to think that I'm slacking over here! ;)
Where should I go next time? I'm thinking I'll head south to Massachusetts...
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