Days 43 - 45

We had several reasons to include Stowe, Vermont in our travel plans.

1) It's beautiful! Especially this time of year! Stowe epitomizes what you think of when you think of Vermont. It is quaint and rural and comfortable and very pretty. We know that sometime on this trip the New England trees will change their leaves. It hasn't happened yet, but you can start to see the first signs that it's about to happen.

2) Susan has history here. She spent her early years in nearby Natick, Massachusetts, and her family used to vacation here in Stowe. There is a nearby private fishing lodge called The Lake Mansfield Trout Club and Susan's family were members. They would vacation there until Susan was 8, which is when they moved away to Seattle. But we made arrangements to stroll around the property and have lunch there. It brought back fond memories for Susan and she says it hasn't changed a bit!

3) Susan's Grandparents lived about an hour away in West Lebanon, New Hampshire. We drove by their old house. Also nearby is the family cemetery in White River Junction, Vermont. where her mother and father are buried. Susan wanted to fulfill her mother's wish, which was to sprinkle the ashes of her mother's cat, Mansfield, upon her mother's grave, so that they could be reunited. Mission accomplished!

4) Susan's Father and Brother are alumni of Dartmouth College, which is located in nearby Hanover, New Hampshire. It's always fun to visit an Ivy League School, although there was considerable construction underway which ruined the opportunity for any pictures. I grabbed these Dartmouth pictures off of the Internet.

6) We got to tour the Ben & Jerry Ice Cream Factory! Yum!

5) Also nearby is the Von Trapp Family Lodge. [An interesting side note - during my high tech sales career I worked for a guy named Ron Von Trapp. He (claimed) he was a relative of Baron Von Trapp. Maybe he was!]

7) Susan and I had actually visited Stowe on vacation years go. It was our ten year anniversary and we had booked a wonderful relaxing vacation for a week while Susan's folks were watching our three small children. We had just arrived in Stowe and were enjoying dinner out when the news broke that there had been a major earthquake in the San Jose area. Yep - it was October 17th, 1989 and the Loma Prieta Earthquake struck at 8:04 PM eastern time. We packed up and headed to the airport immediately and never got to spend even a single night in Stowe. Susan recognized the restaurant where we were dining and snapped this picture.

Vermont adds another state to our map! Now that we are in New England we'll be adding new states at a pretty fast rate.

Tomorrow we head next to Massachusetts and the Boston area!