GUILFORD, VERMONT
We start our first long vacation since the inception of the pandemic with a stop in Guilford, VT, to visit with some of my dearest friends, including the special treat of seeing three generations of my oldest friend Verandah’s family. Gilbert and Susan feed us with Gilbert’s famous (indescribably tasty) chicken thighs, corn he has obtained from a gay-owned farm in a different town, and a remarkable bounty of beans and of tomatoes from Susan’s luxurious garden. We sleep in their renovated historic schoolhouse.
BURLINGTON, VERMONT
The next morning drive a couple of hours to Burlington, where the key architectural elements are originality and color. Every house is quirky and each is different from the next. One common theme is what might now be described as attached town houses, but which were once, I assume, workers’ row houses. The outside of the Airbnb was a riot of greens and the inside appeared to have been designed by Escher and decorated by Mondrian.
To me Burlington has the vibe of Portland, Oregon, without all the baggage of Oregon. Until, that is, I learned about its size. At 42,000, Burlington is what passes for the most populated metropolis of Vermont. It runs entirely on renewable energy, and has done so since 2015. The beautiful, wide open University of Vermont campus anchors the town, and the splendor of Lake Champlain adorns it. We have dinner overlooking the Lake at The Shanty the first night and a picnic the next evening at Perkin’s Pier with my dazzling friends Valerie and Mark, who have returned to live in Burlington. At Valerie’s suggestion, we get ahold of the weekly Seven Days news magazine, with complete listings, stories, and love ads, one page of which is for people who prefer letters to online communication. I thought that was sweet.
SHELBURNE, VERMONT
We take a 7-mile detour to Shelburne, but the Museum campus that houses 29 historic buildings of Vermont is closed for the day. We go to the non-profit Shelburne Farms where the store is open and I buy some jam and some maple syrup. The land, which they call their campus, is a 1,400-acre working farm, forest, and National Historic Landmark. The lane to the seashore is closed to most cars and people are asked to walk because of Covid (I guess to keep the crowds down). Two miles in 95’ heat through a flat field? Not happening. I wave my disabled parking placard and we are given a smile, a map, and a welcome to drive through. It seems like more than two miles of flat farmland until we turn a corner and come upon the lake shore and as beautiful a landscape as I have ever seen. I really feel transported to another realm of being as I stare at this piercingly refined view. I have fantasies of planning a stay at the Farm’s 19th century guesthouse with views of the Lake when it re-opens post-pandemic, hopefully in 2022, until I learn that it has no heat, a/c, TV, or wireless in the rooms.
NORTH HERO ISLAND, VERMONT
My Guilford friend, Lana, was the first to recommend The North Hero House Inn & Restaurant and then it turned out that several other friends who had visited at her suggestion were equally enthusiastic. First, a bit of geography. North Hero is one of four islands in an elongated archipelago in the middle of Lake Champlain, a scenic body of water that separates Vermont and New York and reaches 100 miles up to the Canadian border. The Lake and islands were carved out by receding glaciers. Today over 200,000 people get their drinking water from the Lake.
There are many working farms on the islands – corn and apple and grape vines especially – but the main economic motor is tourism. Numerous state parks and swimming, boating, and water sports appeal in the summer; ice fishing is popular in the winter. The population is 803 people, including Bernie Sanders who has a summer home there, and it is 97.5% white. There is an avalanche of tourists in the summer – and many of them looked to be 60+. The commercial hub of the Island is the complex called Hero’s Welcome, where you can pick up a “Feel the Bern” sub sandwich, a joke keychain, a kayak, home-baked pastries, housewares, sporting goods, and picnic equipment. It’s got everything.
The North Hero House Inn & Restaurant comprises a central building where we went daily for a fulsome complimentary breakfast (don’t miss the potatoes). It was built in 1891 and bragged of the island’s first flush toilet. There are three two-story guest houses with screened-in porches on the water. I stayed in the Cove House, built as a private residence in 1811. It’s the far right building in the photo; my room was last on the right on the 2nd floor. The porch hung over the water and was equipped with a table and two chairs plus a hammock. I got a little fridge on request, and would have been fully content if only the room had working wireless. Turns out that it is the worst room for wireless in the complex. I had called twice to ensure internet access and they bullshitted me. It’s not that I wanted to be on Facebook or play with Tik Tok. It’s just that when you are traveling, a tourist needs the interwebz to find the address of a particular restaurant or to check which days a museum is open. In the end, no biggie. Still, I woulda had liked to know.
We visited the Farmers Market on South Hero one day at the recommendation of its charming organizer Liz, whom I met through Verandah. She knows her islands, which she proved by sending us off to the Blue Paddle restaurant, where I followed her instructions and ordered the filet mignon. It was out of this world. The kick-ass owner and the French-speaking server were gracious and amiable women. The duo performing music were melodious, and it was clear – as greetings flew among the tables – that everyone knew everyone in town.
I could never live in a town of 800 people without exploding the social fabric. Rural living requires continuous compromise, tongue-biting, forgetting and forgiving, and excusing questionable behavior. These are not, unfortunately, skills I ever developed. But they are necessary in order to build and maintain community in small places where neighborly support is vital to survival. If you fall out with the librarian or with the leadership of the reproductive rights group or with the owner of the only restaurant big enough to hold events – you’re up shit’s creek. They may be the only game in town.
Speaking of the library, there was a new one in South Hero, but we visited the old public library in North Hero, built in 1907. A volunteer was sweetly forthcoming about what it was like to retire to the island (she’s on at least a half dozen committees) and about the politics of the library. She sent us downstairs to a massive collection of used books for sale, where I bought one by Anais Nin. You can tell so much about a place by looking through such piles, and my conclusion was that this was truly Bernie turf, with a healthy dose of feminism.
We traveled one day to Saint Anne’s Shrine on Isle La Motte, on the spot where Vermont’s oldest settlement was built in 1660. I was put off by the huge statue of Christ nailed to the cross – a disturbing image I have never been able to look at unruffled. There is a chapel and some cabins for spiritual retreats and a big gold statue of Saint Anne.
We hit several of the state parks, but I was most delighted by Sand Bar with its gorgeous 2,000 foot beach. The park was established in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Copious picnic tables make it just the place to spend the day at the Lake. We also drove down many roads marked “private” – I often feel compelled to do so – and saw some of the more expensive lakeside homes. But what we couldn’t help notice was that throughout the islands, the architecture was thoroughly unremarkable. Uninteresting. Kinda ugly. There was no particular style (like the Capes on the Cape) and in fact no style at all. Most of them were relatively new and all were abjectly bland. What a contrast with the beautiful nature all around, not the least the copious willow trees.
QUECHEE GORGE, VERMONT
After three nights on the Island, we headed home, but stopped overnight in a boring Airbnb in Lebanon, NH, which was the halfway point on our return. We visited the Quechee Gorge, often called a Little Grand Canyon, formed by melting glaciers about 13,000 years ago. One stands on either/both sides of the bridge 168 feet above the Gorge, and looks down. I was surprised at how dry the river at the bottom of the mile-long chasm was. There are trails down for hikers.
To my surprise, we drove past Fat Hat, a clothing company I’ve been ordering bright thick cotton jackets from online ever since I discovered their twice-a-year 50% sale. It was right on 1 Quechee Main St. I just had to stop and say hello. There were tons more garments than are featured online, but I ended up buying the same sweater/jacket as always – but in a sky blue color. Behind the store was Chef Brad’s Food Truck, the summer version of his Crazy Stop Café. The whole property was draped in greenery and bamboo skirting, full of baubles and bangles and bits of decoration and a school bus turned dining car and picnic tables and tomato plants and myriad signs about controlling children and trash disposal. I had potato and chive soup and a side of fries.
The next day, we drove through impoverished rural areas to Woodstock, Vermont, a wealthy shire town full of exquisite historic buildings, handsome tree-lined boulevards, shops with expensive this and that, and a long wait for our late lunch at the highly organic Mon Vert Café. We stopped at the well-known Village Butcher Shop where I failed to stop myself from buying a fresh cherry pie. Before you judge me, it was a little one. It was truly the cherry on the top of a magnificent week-long escape.
Photos from Barry Hock, Dr Random, and me
Wow! You made me want to visit each place you went,Sue!
Thanks,Sherrard
Posted by: Sherrard Hamilton | 03 September 2021 at 09:19