June 17-21, 2019. State #44. One week in Vermont.

We stayed at Lazy Lions RV park, in Barre, Vermont. I’m going to be totally honest and tell you that we chose this location because it was near Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream factory. Need I say more?

Abby loved this park because it had trails and little fields that branched off of those so she could explore on her own. These are pictures of her favorite spots.

Rock of Ages Granite Quarry

We drove past this quarry on our way to camp so I looked up. I love rocks and think quarries are so cool. When I moved to Kennesaw/Acworth area I drove past the Vulcan quarry near the local airport. It only took a couple of times of driving by before I had to pull over check it out. This was a fun surprise discovery.

On Monday, the girls and I headed over one day to take a tour.We started with a movie in the visitors center, then took a van ride, through the ‘scrap yard’ where they dump fracture pieces, up two he top of the quarry and then a self guided tour of the granite plant.

Rock of Ages is the world’s largest deep-hole granite quarry granite. The granite from this quarry is what is used on the majority of all the headstones in America. It was used on the National WWII Memorial,

We were able to pick out free souvenir granite pieces from a scrap bin before we left.

They also have an outdoor granite bowling lane that we took turns playing on. The Rock of Ages experimented with granite bowling lanes in the 1950s, but the concept never caught on.

We took the quarry tour and watched how they cut the stone out. Below that blue-green water is another 600 feet.

They pointed out the spot where the scene in 2009 Star Trek movie was filmed.  Check out the part near the beginning where a young James T. Kirk steals a car and drives it off a cliff.

 

Self guided tour of the museum and plant. We could see them polishing headstones, etching names and carving statues. The yellow cord is filled with tiny diamond specks that cut the granite.

Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream Factory

Tuesday evening we headed over the Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream Factory to catch the last guided factory tour of the day. We were sad to find out that there was a problem in the factory and they had to shut down the machines. We still went through the building and watched movie clips to see how it all works.

At the end of the tour you get to sample the mix of the day. Today it was Salted Carmel Blondie. The portions are a nice size scoop. It had eggs in it, so I couldn’t try it but they did have a lemon sorbet I could try.

Half Baked is the highest selling flavor, followed by Cherry Garcia and then Cookie Dough.

Cheers to our ‘Half Baked’ idea to sell everything and travel the country!

Flavor Graveyard

We paid your respects to the dearly de-pinted flavors like; Schweddy Balls, Peanut Butter and Jelly and Fresh Georgia Peach.

We also played tag on the playground afterward to work off our ice cream.

Bragg Farm Sugarhouse

When in Vermont, you must visit a Maple Syrup farm. We chose Bragg Farm Sugar house, outside of Montpelier. They have a sap bucket attached trees that you can see how it works. After we watched the film about the history of the farm and the process of collecting the sap and making the maple syrup we did a syrup tasting.

This farm still ‘sugars’ the traditional way. They tap out more than 2000 buckets each Spring and boiling the sap with a wood fire. We learned about the different colors and flavors of maple syrup. The way they label the different types and times of harvest is by the color. Golden (the first sap collected), Amber, Dark and Very Dark.

We all liked the Amber the best so we bought a bottle of that. Then we tried the “WORLD’S BEST” maple creemees we saw advertised on the website. A creemee is a soft serve ice cream.

Vermont Capitol building

The capitol is located in Montpelier so we stopped by after our maple syrup tour to get our selfie. This building is made from the granite quarried from Rock of Ages Quarry.

I love the flower beds and doors on the building.

Although we didn’t make it up to Cabot Farms, I still bought their cheese this week.

Chris traveled the later part of the week so we had girls day.

Updated map

We stayed in a Walmart parking lot, in Utica, NY, because we didn’t want to drive all the way to Niagara Falls, NY in one day. Stylin’ and Profilin’.