New England States Road Trip Part 6.....Vermont

This guy was on the maple farm we visited. 

Continuing my posts from our 30th anniversary trip. If you want to enjoy more photos and videos than I share here, you can visit my Facebook Page, Kirstin Bozich Troyer and search 30th anniversary trip. Also, my Instagram page (@kirsteemarie) has several highlights from our trip that are worth checking out. I also think I might be off on my days but it doesn't matter. 

Did I mention that the previous places we stayed were comfortable enough, though very small and at least once, the bed was a full size bed. That was interesting. We are used to a King bed. But, when you're only staying one night, possibly two, you don't need luxury, just a place to crash. Staying at this bed and breakfast was a treat...big comfy bed in a large room with cozy seating area and nice bathroom. We slept great. I mentioned in the 

I loved finding old houses or buildings set on ponds. I just got the idea to try and turn this one into a watercolor look since it's a bit "soft" looking.

 It did rain overnight and the next morning.  When you're on a schedule, on a 10 day road trip, you can't let weather stop you...even though I'm not a fan of rain. I had to back and look through the time stamps on my photos because I couldn't remember when we hit each spot. We decided the main stop of the day would be  Sugarbush Farms in neighboring Woodstock, VT. Woodstock, VT is only about 15 minutes from Queechee. However, we left fairly early and since the weather was not the best, we decided we would drive around and see some sites before hitting the farm when the weather app showed the least amount of rain. One thing I noticed, it's sure hard to find coffee shops. Especially when you're taking back roads and going through small towns. I settled on a coffee at the bed and breakfast with the hopes I'd find something eventually.

In areas, the scenery reminded us of home, but less fir and pine trees so the colors were more stunning.

We actually headed back over into New Hampshire. We first hit Hanover, home of Dartmouth College and drove around that area. The buildings were beautiful. We didn't stop, but simply drove through. From there we traveled to Lyme, NH where we found our first covered bridge of the day. Many of the bridges had their original wood pegs and much of the bridges are originals but have had reinforcements made to them. We went on a hunt for another one, only to discover it was destroyed in a windstorm in 1979. We stopped at Hatchland Farms for lunch. They have a nice little market area and then a counter where they serve sandwiches, soup and ice cream. It was a nice pitstop!

Above and below, Dartmouth College. Just love these old buildings. I think it would've been fun to go inside. 

The Edgell Covered Bridge in Lyme, NH. It was built in the late 1800's. There was rumor that it was built by an 18 year old man. 

Two barns I stopped to photograph at Hatchland Farms when we stopped to use the restrooms and have lunch. 

The Bedell Bridge historic site is located in Haverville, NH. As mentioned above, it was destroyed in a wind storm in 1979.

We found another covered bridge in Bath,NH. I laughed at the sign above it regarding fines. 

This store was closed and for sale. I loved the seating on the porch and wished we could've went inside. 

Look at how beautiful the inside is. WOW!! You can tell where they have reinforced things, but so much original bridge is there. 

Check out that peg! WOW! 

After that we headed back toward Queechee and Woodstock on our way to Sugarbush Farms. We found the Queechee covered bridge as well ass the Taftsville bridge. 

The Queechee covered bridge wasn't far from where we stayed. I think I have another photo we took when we headed out of town on our last day. I'll post that later. This was built in 1970 but suffered severe damage in 2011 and had to be rebuilt.

The Taftsville bridge was built in 1836. This site had some great information on these local bridges. 

Middle Covered Bridge was built in 1969 to replace an 1877 iron bridge. It had to be repaired after it was set on fire in 1974 by an arsonist. 

Lincoln Covered Bridge was built in 1877. The site I linked to above has some interesting information about this bridge and it's construction features. 

It had stopped raining by the time we reached the farm. During the months they aren't making syrup, their sugar house becomes a "classroom" filled with all kinds of educational information. After we browsed the sugar house we headed to their shop which was filled with cheese and maple syrup as well as candies, baked goods and much more. It was crowded so we didn't linger. We opted to take a mile long trek through the woods to get some exercise. We found we were the only ones on this particular trail...it wasn't an easy stroll of a walk with many uphill spots, but it was fascinating to see the progression of the lines for the sap and there were information sheets all along the way, which we found interesting. There was a small wedding chapel that you can rent. It was built by the owners son and the owner and her husband celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. They had a spot set up that simulated what it was like to carry buckets of sap through snow by carrying buckets with rocks and walking through tires. I am going to try and post a video.

I love photos, especially old ones, so these were really neat! 

The chapel on the maple farm! 

On our mile long hike through the woods. 

All throughout they had these signs up talking about the processes etc. So interesting. 

Pretending I'm carrying sap down through the snow. Obviously now, they have lines set up to carry the sap. 

After that we took back roads to Woodstock where we drove around and then stopped at the Woodstock Farmers Market and purchased a few food items for dinner that night and a coffee. We then headed back to Queechee, stopping first at the Queechee Gorge Village and looked around a bit. There we found an old Toy Museum on the top floor that was amazing. It is owned by one person. That was so fun to walk around and see the toys from almost every era. It brought back so many memories. Then we headed back for an early evening in where we enjoyed, cheese, meat and crackers for dinner and planned our next days outing. 

A neat market, with an amazing selection of quality products, many of them local. 

This was a neat project we spotted outside the general store in Queechee, VT.

Just a couple examples from the toy museum in Queechee.

I would completely do this trip again, perhaps going a little longer. I wouldn't mind even visiting during another season. I would stop at more antique type stores, even though I probably wouldn't be buying anything, but I think it would be neat. 

With Joy Unquenchable,

Kirstin