OK, this may be the shortest post of the entire trip, and rightly so. Our agenda for day 13 - get home. Because of that, there is one picture, but it is rather fitting.
We spent a fair amount of time at these fine establishments, which leads me to the trip stats.
I'll keep these brief, as they are likely of little interest, but I'd like to capture them here for future reference.
Total miles 2,843
Flat tow miles 2,395
Dinghy (Jeep) miles 448
Avg gas price $3.88/gal
Avg mileage 7.71mpg
National Parks - 1
State Parks - 3
RV Parks - 3
Total micro/regional breweries visited - 7
Trips to hardware store in 2 weeks prior to leaving - 8
Pictures taken - infinity
Near misses - 1 (thank you elderly FLA driver)
Incidents - a few, like forgetting to put the Jeep in gear before unlocking the towbar arms, or leaving the valves open on the gray/black tanks and screwing the cap on (you RVers will know what that could have led to had I not realized it before removing the cap...)
Problems - zero. Extremely fortunate here. I would like to believe this is due to extreme levels of preparation, but realize that can't prevent everything.
Day 12 started pretty early, as we had a bit of a drive to get to our intended destination. We had the Big Truck/Jeep combo hooked up and ready to go before 8am, but of course the dreaded visit to the dump station took its toll. At Button Bay the station is in the 2nd loop of the park, and since everything is One Way and 5mph, it is a bit of a ridiculous proposition. If you have ever seen the Kevin James bit (from Don't Sweat the Small Stuff) about the bank teller line,
you would then understand the slow crawl through the campground, especially dragging the Jeep behind us. Button Bay is worse, because once you finally reach the dump station, you are forced back around the same loop in order to exit the park. Once again, you are giving the same nods to campers who are assuming you have no idea where you are going, since they just saw you a couple of minutes ago.
Anyway, after getting out of the park, we must have mistakenly set the GPS on Max Difficulty, Mininum Achievable MPG, or Least Straightaways, because the next 4 hours involved more elevation change, 25mph zones, and roadside streambeds than I have ever seen. We followed the southern shore of Lake Champlain (No, E - we didn't see Champy)
until we crossed over into upstate NY. Ok, a few things about upstate NY.
1. The gas pumps - the powers that be have removed all latching mechanisms from the pump handles, and have slowed the pumps down to the point that you can watch the thousandth (3rd decimal point, for those of you who really, really want to be precise about how much gas you use) digit climb from 1 to 9. Since the pumps also limit out at $125, I spent 13 minutes (yes, I timed it) holding the pump handle for one fillup.
2. The red traffic lights - perhaps those same powers that be have altered the red lights to include a seizure-inducing white LED strip across the center of the red light, as shown below.
OK, maybe that's not it, but that's exactly what it reminded me of. And for those of you that don't immediately recognize that (shame on you), it's the Cylon helmet from the original Battlestar Galactica series. I know, right? Who doesn't know that...
3. Tank tops - the only logical explanation I have is that there must be a constant "Buy 1 get all the rest of the stock free" sale on mens tank tops, because that's all we saw. And at the risk of offending at least one East Coast resident we know who fits into this category, I am willing to wager that my wife Kimberly is taller than 90% of the adult men we encountered in upstate NY. This may as well be the state license plate:
Now, on to the important stuff. Brewery Ommegang. We arrived at our campsite (you have to compromise a bit when you're looking for a 1 night stay during Labor Day weekend with about 4 hrs notice. I won't mention the campground, but suffice it to say the word 'hilljack' was used in our description of it and its inhabitants more than once), set up shop, and motored through roads like these
to get to this place
which revealed this on the other side of the arch...
I won't bore you with the details of the tour, because I may have blacked out in my excitement to be at the actual brewery of all those Belgian Ales that have inspired my beer choices over the past 10 years. Seeing the brewing, bottling, and packaging process up close was really cool, and our tour guide Rachel (see below)
did a fantastic job of describing the entire process to our group. You can definitely see that the employees here are passionate about their craft.
The payoff after the tour is the tasting, where they take you through the 6 varieties brewed on site. Here is the tasting room, followed by the cafe, followed by the outdoor seating area. The whole setting is really cool, set back in the countryside surrounded by woods.
Overall this was the highlight of any of the brewery visits, and even Jordan got in on the action, having a locally brewed root beer out of one of the tasting glasses once we returned to the Big Truck.
Things got a bit quiet for a while after that, then we decided to listen to the Michigan - Alabama football game. Unfortunately, the signal wasn't very good, and as far as I know all footage of that game has been completely destroyed. No further comment.
This concludes the entertainment portion of the blog. Day 13 will cover our return trip home from Cooperstown NY to our house, along with a few nerd stats from the entire vacation. More to follow...
Day 11 started with a pretty laid back morning, in keeping with the countryside around our park.
Button Bay is a very interesting park - it covers a lot of ground and, and the 2 camping loops feel quite isolated and private. The setting from the road is also cool, the orignal stone gates create a striking image, as well as a challenge for well meaning RVers such as ourselves.
This trip has offered nothing if not variety, and today would be no different. We decided to check out the nearby Shelburne Museum. It is a very odd and interesting collection of structures, art, historical references, etc all locating on a pretty sprawling campus right off the lake. It's a beautiful setting, and it is striking right off the bat with this classic round barn.
The engineering nerd in me was fascinated by the structural details, especially since this thing had an enormous span and was wide open save for the central column. Here's how they did it.
I found it to be very impressive, especially give the choice of materials and tools available when these things were built. The others in my party were more interested in getting to the carousel and circus figurine exhibit.
I won't go into detail on every single exhibit we saw, but suffice it to say that we burned through 4 hours very easily, and still missed many things. Here are a few quick highlights:
In the 50's the museum purchased this huge steamship and relocated it from Lake Champlain to the museum grounds. I can't imagine that was an easy task.
There were ample opportunities for the whole family to get involved, and nobody likes dressup (well, other than maybe J. Edgar Hoover) more than a 4 year old - more specifically, our 4 year old.
A couple more - they actually moved an entire covered bridge to the museum grounds as well. This thing was cool, especially this sign.
A couple more nerderies - there was an exhibit on robots, toys, and steampunk artifacts. Yup, as always, huge nerd. But, I'm writing this, so these are here to stay.
...aaaand of course who wouldn't want to see a steampunk rendition of Vader and Boba Fett. Why? Why not.
And finally, after a visit to the authentic jailhouse, a sight I hope (If we do our jobs correctly) I never see again in my lifetime...
As we worked our way back to the campsite, we stopped at a couple of the roadside tourist traps to snag some Vermont-y stuff for back home. While Kimberly took 25 minutes to check out at the Vermont Flannel Co (dude was chatty, but super nice), I snagged a couple of shots of his '49 International, which he had just driven to the DMV to renew the tags a few days before. Pretty impressive.
Just before we got back to the campground, I convinced the family to stop at the public boat launch for a shameless sunset pic, and also because I had vowed to drive the Jeep on a beach somewhere during this trip. Well, I got my wish for about 30 seconds, but long enough to capture this.
We were pretty wiped out, but still managed a good campfire and cookout of some good old fashioned Maple-cured chicken sausages from right up the road. Awesome.
Tomorrow - I'm pretty excited, we visit and tour my favorite brewery in the US, Brewery Ommegang. Should be pretty cool. More to follow.
Day 10 started with us getting a fairly early start, bypassing the beach and any playgrounds in order to ride the tram up Cannon Mtn, right behind our campsite. Here's the view from the base, with at least one excited participant eagerly waiting.
Before I get to the tram, I have to describe what we saw in the parking lot. I'm always trolling parking lots looking for something interesting to park beside. This morning we were rewarded. Someone had obviously put a lot of time, effort, and fabrication into this Baja Bug, and I couldn't stop pacing around it. I especially enjoyed the sticker on the front of the hood - "Yours can go fast, mine can go anywhere."
Once we got on the tram, it was smooth sailing. We had the 80 person car all to ourselves, except for Jack and one other park employee. They were very informative, and not in a recorded message kind of way. They pointed out areas where we could see all the way to Canada, New York, and New Hampshire. You can tell from Kimberly's expression that she was really enjoying the ride up.
What we didn't realize before today was that we were in Bode Miller’s hometown. More on him later, but he is a multiple Olympic medal winner for USA, and still lives in the area. Our guy Jack mentioned that he had just seen him in town yesterday, and that he keeps a pretty low profile but is a very down to earth local in these parts.
The guys also told us about a lot of 'firsts' that this particular part of Vermont is responsible for in the world of skiing. Something about first high speed lift, first gondola, etc. I asked if I am still allowed here, since I am a snowboarder, and they acknowledged that although they are skiing purists, they welcome all kinds at this mountain.
That felt good, because all I can picture when I think of skiing purists are these guys, and I just can't see Kimberly and I rocking this ensemble.
When the tram reached the top, we had a short hike left to the observation tower for a full 360 degree view from the mountaintop. It provided incredible views, especially looking down at the valley and seeing how Franconia Notch got it's name. Here are a few sample shots, pics do it no justice.
On the deck of the observation tower, there is this compass that shows you in all directions which peaks and ranges you can see. To the north, there is a pass through the mountains that looks like someone used and ice cream scoop to remove a section of the range (credit Ranger Jack for that description). It was pretty amazing that we could pick out nearly every peak on the map, we really lucked out on the weather.
On the way down, we saw a little Snoopy/Red Baron style plane towing up a glider. He just happened to release the glider right above us, and of course we grabbed a pic.
On the way down, Jack told us about the local ski museum at the base of the lift. As I mentioned, we're not big skiers, but wanted to support the locals, and he said Bode Miller had been allowing the museum to showcase his medals. Well, we lucked out, because the nicest woman in the Northeast happened to be opening up the museum, and asked if we'd like to see the medals up close.
I'm not sure about any of you, but I've never envisioned a scenario where I would be holding an Olympic gold medal in my hand for any reason. I can tell you they are heavy, biting one only hurts your teeth, and they are specifically engraved with the full description of the event. We both thought it was pretty cool, and I can't thank the woman (didn't catch her name) enough.
For the next few hours, we drove through western New Hampshire and into Vermont. My friend Aaron had said 2 things about Vermont - don't speed, and Vermont feels very - Vermont. He was right on both counts. Police everywhere, and things just feel different. The best word I can think of to describe it is proper.
People here take care of their possesions - lawns and landscaping are meticulously manicured, houses are well maintained, everything just looks, well, proper. Add to that fact that every vehicle you see is a Subaru, a Volvo wagon/SUV, or a Saab - to way more of an extreme than the rest of the Northeast. Also the area we are in appears to be mostly farmland. This pic is off Google image, but it sums up what we've seen better than anything I have.
Despite all the proper-ness, this story was on the radio every few minutes. Seems like everywhere you go, someone has a local that is running over multiple police cars with someone else's tractor.
Our home for the next 2 nights is Button Bay State Park, just under an hour south of Burlington and right on Lake Champlain. We were surprised at how remote the park felt, and the setting of the multiple tiers of mountains in the distance across the lake was like a postcard. Here's our campground.
No explanation necessary here.
We did find out that one part cooped-up kid + one part generic molded plastic playground toy = human science experiment. She didn't seem to mind.
After a quick setup of the Big Truck (we've gotten this somewhat down to a science - I can have the Jeep unhooked in about 4 minutes, during which time Kimberly can have the Big Truck in full camping mode), we were off to Burlington to see what we could see. On the agenda - a brief stop at Magic Hat Brewery, followed by dinner at American Flatbread, also home to Zero Gravity Brewing Co.
If there are any diehard Magic Hat fans reading this, skip to the next section. I have nothing against them, but this visit confirmed what I had suspected after viewing their website. Their beers are OK, but they struck me as the Harley Davidson of microbrewers, selling an image, apparel, and a marketing plan more than the actual product. Their tasting room was more of the same. I bought an empty 'genie' growler as a souvenir, and it was a bit awkward explaining to the guy at the checkout that even though I could fill it up for $2, I preferred not to. Cool place, just not for me.
Zero Gravity, on the other hand, seemed to take the opposite approach. It's hard to find much about them, and their location is very understated (see below, that's where we ate), but their beer was excellent. It helps that they brew an excellent Belgian Tripel, my personal favorite.
One thing that was not my personal favorite (or Kimberly's) - our server. She seemed very uncomfortable dealing with people, which seems like a poor fit for her chosen vocation. Add to that that she was a dead ringer for a female Cousin Dale from Vacation (see below), and it made for a challenging evening. (You may recognize the actor from his subsequent work on Silver Spoons, teaching us all a very valuable lesson about the perils of bullying 'the Ricker').
We were only a couple of blocks from the lake in downtown Burlington, so we figured we'd take a stroll to the waterfront and check out the city. It had a very cool vibe to it, almost like a college town, except without the puke and 4 for $5 neon 40oz ads. Tons of people walking around, a cool boardwalk and bike path, and lots of green space right down by the water. Our exhausted daughter grabbed a couple of photo ops right before she alternated between boneless ragdoll and Tasmanian Devil.
Tomorrow looks to be a more relaxed family day, with hopefully a visit to the Shelburne Museum (Thanks Laurie & Rick for the recommendation!) and a few other Vermont-y things. More to follow.
