Randolph Center, VT - Sept. 26 - Oct. 9, 2007

On September 26th we rolled out of Salisbury Beach, MA heading northwest to Randolph Center, Vermont for two weeks of serious leaf peeping.  We selected Lake Champagne Campground for its central location and for its attractive website pictures.  Websites frequently oversell their facilities, but Lake Champagne lived up to the images.  We had a wonderful site overlooking rolling parkland sloping down to a small lake.  Beyond the lake was a hardwood forest that we watched change from green to bright red during our two-week stay.

While in Vermont we took several scenic drives that took us by ski resorts, small villages, winding mountain roads, maple shops, apple orchards, covered bridges, and Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Factory (Eat your hearts out you 'Chunky Monkey' freaks - this means you Ms. Gomes.)   The beauty of Vermont elicited in so many 'Ooohs and Ahhhs' that one would think we had reverted to prehistoric methods of communication.  Towards the end of our stay the leaf color was at its height - words failed us.

During our stay we took a trip over to New York to check out Fort Ticonderoga.  Susan programmed the destination but did not check the settings on our mapping system, which was set on 'avoid ferries'.  Consequently, in our inadvertent effort to avoid crossing the Hudson River, we saw a bit more of Vermont's mountains than anticipated.  Since it was so beautiful we didn't really care. However, on our return trip we crossed the Hudson River via the ferry and saved about two hours of travel time.

We spent a perfect Thursday in Burlington, Vermont's largest city.  We enjoyed a scenic lunch cruise on Lake Champlain, wandered around the downtown area, hiked up to the university and toured their art museum, then wandered back downtown for dinner and a glorious sunset over the lake.  Since it was the University of Vermont's homecoming weekend this beautiful city was really bustling while we were there.

On a warm, sunny day we continued our sectional Appalachian Trail hiking program (we've hiked sections in North Carolina, Tennessee and New York) with an 8-mile hike through dense forest to Happy Hill shelter.  As when we hiked the Trail in New York, we wondered at all the rock fences in the middle of a forest.  Why did the early settlers build these rock walls?  About a week later Susan found the answer.  Apparently, by the mid-19th Century nearly all the forests in Vermont and New Hampshire had been harvested, resulting in serious environmental damage.  Also, in the mid-19th Century there was a rapid expansion in sheep raising to supply New England's woolen mills.  Because timber had been depleted and rock was plentiful, the ranchers built rock walls to fence in the sheep that grazed the hills and mountains.  Mystery solved.

Also during our hike we came upon a maze of plastic tubing and spigots strung over acres.  The tubing was much like a drip irrigation system suspended about 30-inches above the ground, and parasitically connected to numerous trees.  Once again we were baffled.  After pondering this puzzle a bit, we realized it was a sap harvesting system for the production of maple syrup.  The snowy Norman Rockwell image of children using wooden spigots and buckets to harvest maple sap was instantly erased from our minds.

One day Susan visited the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historic Park in Woodstock.  As mentioned above, by mid-19th Century most of Vermont's forests had been cut down causing severe erosion and flooding. George Perkins Marsh was the first to respond to Vermont's environmental crisis; and with the publication of his book Man and Nature in 1864, the environmental movement was born.  Today, this beautiful estate is a testimony to responsible farming methods and forest management, and serves as a model of how to reverse some manmade environmental damage.

After viewing an NBC report on the Rock of Ages granite quarry, we realized it was just down the road in Graniteville, VT - so we had to see it.   We took a guided tour of the very deep quarry and then visited the factory to observe the artisans transforming the stone into monuments and statuary.  On the advice of our tour guide, we then visited Hope Cemetery in Barre to see examples of granite artisans' skills.  The cemetery displayed incredible personalized granite memorials including a favorite chair, a racecar, a bi-plane, a soccer ball, and a copy of Michelangelo's Pieta, among many others.

Toward the end of our stay in Vermont we returned to tour the lovely village of Woodstock as it was all decked out in its autumn finery.  We had lunch, strolled the streets, visited the bookshops, art galleries and bakeries, and snapped photos like crazed shutterbugs.  On our return to Randolph Center we stopped to view the impressive Quechee Gorge on the White River.

Alas, the air was getting crisp and it was time to leave the Green Mountain state and start our trek to Wakarusa, Indiana and then to the Southwest for the winter.  So on October 10th we reluctantly headed east to New York.