Thank you all for the kind words yesterday!
The Ben and Jerry’s plant was full of Ben and Jerry’s whimsical and colorful cartoons, both 3-D and painted on the walls; even the tubes in the factory were painted in lavender and the like, a very cheerful place. The tour guide clearly enjoyed giving out the free samples at the end.
From there, we went to the Cabot’s cheese factory store, the Lake Champlain Chocolates factory store–their hot cocoa is enough to get me back to Vermont right there–and a brief glance into the teddy bear factory next door just out of curiosity. Later, running an errand, our daughter asked if we wanted to take the short route or the scenic route. I laughed and answered, This is Vermont: it’s ALL the scenic route!
Which is true. I can see why she and her husband fell in love with the place so fast. It is just so gorgeous everywhere you turn–and this is with the trees bare for the winter, pretty much. Lacy bits of very white fog drifting through the peaks everywhere, black marbled granite to either side of the road as you drive, pine trees offering some green among the endless tree trunks and bare limbs of the highly forested views… Beautiful.
And then we took them out to Butler’s for dinner at Essex Inn last night, the restaurant of the New England Culinary Academy. I can just hear all the Vermonters swooning. As my father once put it, How many meals do you eat in your life? Now, how many do you remember? That was definitely one for remembering–and then the head chef came out and greeted us at the end of the meal: he’d seen our son-in-law go by, a friend of his, and came out to say hi. We got to thank him in person for the exquisite meal. And then after he left, an extra dessert mysteriously appeared at our places: the best dark chocolate truffles I have ever tasted, bite-size cheesecakes, tiny chocolate cookies.
He didn’t have to bribe us; sure, Vermont, we’ll come back!
Home tomorrow.