October 21 - 27, 2013 - Part One

On Monday, we discovered Vicki's trusty [to date] Santa Fe had a little problem.  When we were heading out to do a little returning of clothes/shopping, her car didn't start when she turned the key.  After jiggling the shifter, it started, so we ventured out and were lucky it started when she jiggled the shifter.  We stopped for a quick lunch at The Crow's Nest [excellent roast beef sandwiches] as Vicki had to work the three to seven shift.

We'd thought about renting a car for the Vermont trip but after talking with my very own personal Car Guy, we took the chance and decided not to rent.

Tuesday was spent preparing for our trip to The Green Mountains.

We left for Vermont at 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday.  Steve was scheduled to arrive at Burlington International Airport at around 5:00 p.m. so we had plenty of time.  However, when he arrived at LaGuardia he was able to get an earlier connecting flight and his new arrival time was 1: 30 ish.  Relying on my iPad to get us a faster route, once we hit Rutland we took Route 7 into Burlington and it was a wonderful trip through Middlebury, Brandon, Shelburne.   Steve was standing outside only for about 10 minutes when we got there.

We checked into our hotel and freshened up.  At 6:00 we went to The Hen of the Wood for dinner with Jim and Sue.  Here are a few photos to enjoy:

Crispy Pig's Head [wonderful]

Here's the wine Steve selected:

Family:

Sue and Jim

Vicki and Steve

Steve and me

And:

Vicki and Sue

Jim and Steve

Jim, Sue, Steve and Vicki

We had a wonderful time and love the location.  We'll definitely be back to this spot.

Thursday morning we drove down the hill back to The Hen of the Wood to capture the beauty of the stream:

Then, we decided to go to Montpelier, but alas Vicki's car had the aforementioned problem.  She called Jim who called Sunoco Bob in Montpelier who diagnosed the problem over the phone.  So off we went to Montpelier.  We dropped the car off at Sunoco Bob's and walked into town.  Montpelier is beautiful so we walked around town for a while, snapping photos here and there.  Lots of churches in Montpelier with beautiful steeples:

By this time, we were looking for a place to have lunch and came across a sign that said "Farm to Table" and it is a part of the New England Culinary Institute.  So, we had lunch at NECI on Main and was it ever good!!!

I had Parsnip Soup [and Cosmo]

Vicki's Pumpkin Risotto

Steve's Ploughman's Platter

My Autumn Salad

Pumpkin Creme Brûlée

Vicki's Cheesecake

After lunch, we walked a bit and Steve purchased a jacket in Onion Sports.  The Onion River meanders through Montpelier and several stores have "Onion" in the name.

Back over the bridge to see about the car.  Sunoco Bob is a good guy and he put Vicki's car in front of others as he was aware we were from NJ and didn't want to be stranded.  So back to Waterbury Center we went.  Vicki's son, Matt, and his family had arrived by then and we hung out for a while.  Josh and Laura love being tossed around by Steve.

Matt and Carol went into Stowe for the evening leaving Josh and Laura in our capable hands ;0).  We took them to dinner in the hotel, and then Jim and Sue joined us in the Great Room.

Back in the Great Room, Jim dazzled us with his juggling abilities.

In truth, they were non-existent!

Matt and Carol returned from Stowe and Carol decided she's going to have to find new babysitters in the future as we didn't put the kids to bed by 8:00 p.m.

I'll end this now and continue our Vermont trip in the next post.