Vermont Maple Syrup, Hikes, Bikes, Blog, Ben and Jerry’s and Bangor

As we entered week two of our new adventure fueled lifestyle of full time van living, we hiked Bald Mountain in New York before leaving the Adirondacks. This particular hike had a fire tower that you could actually scale all the way to the top, unlike the one we hiked much further to see in Arizona. Bald Mountain trail was just over two miles and was a perfect way to start the day before driving to our next stop, Bennington, Vermont.

Why Bennington, VT you might ask? Well, because there was an extended stay option available at a Boondockers Welcome and it seemed like anything in Vermont would likely be great, so why not? Our host ended up suggesting a hike we could do as we got into town which turned out to be a four mile out and back that was a perfect way to stretch our legs after driving most of the day.

The Robert Frost trail is exactly what you would expect from the name. Robert Frost lived in the stone house at the end of the trail for some time and his poems were scattered along the trail on plaques. He wrote “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” while residing here and the trail actually wound through the woods mentioned in the iconic poem.

It was easy to see where the inspiration came from, the woods were “lovely, dark and deep”, and would surely be breathtaking in the snow too. The stone house that the poet lived in is now a museum but unfortunately it wasn’t open when we were there.

The rain finally caught up to us the next day and so we spent a “spooky month” morning wandering the cemetery where Frost is buried. The inscription on his headstone quickly became a favorite, “I had a lovers quarrel with the world”. Although Frost was not a member of the Old First Congregational Church he is buried in the cemetery on its grounds. The church happened to be open while we were there so we stepped inside for a quick tour of this interesting space.

Volunteers told us about the history of the church and the “boxes” which were purchased by the townspeople. When the need arose for a new church building in town the idea was proposed to impose a “church tax” on the townsfolk to fund the construction. In order to preserve separation of church and state parishioners opted instead to pre-buy these boxes for their family to sit in during the services. One of the kind volunteers who was a financial advisor said that she did the math and to purchase a box when this church was originally built would cost somewhere around $500 and today that would be over $200k, talk about inflation! Single men were relegated to the upper balcony left. This is known due to the carvings in the wood they did with their penknives, you can still see these carvings although they were painted over in the restoration process. Single women resided in the upper right balcony, no carvings there because ladies are polite of course. Families piled into the floor boxes and the church does still operate to this day however, all boxes and seats are open to anyone. My favorite tidbit was the “poker”, it said that if one was unlucky enough to fall asleep during a service, there was a designated “poker” which was a person with a long stick who would poke the offender until they awoke!

It didn’t rain for very long and so we were able to get a good hike day in, ANOTHER Bald Mountain trail but this one in Vermont. The first half of the hike was up, up, up and so the temps in the 50’s were not all that bad. Being a moss/fungi girlie I couldn’t help but notice the woods were veritably dripping with it. Vermonts moss game is definitely on point.

We decided to go on a little further to the white rocks overlook after reaching the summit and we found a rather bizarre surprise.

Here at white rocks overlook which sits at 2,100′ there was a barbell with about 145 lbs of weight just sitting down on a cliff edge…we have SO many questions. How did it get there, did one person carry plates and one the bar, was there a pack animal involved, and just…why? This spot is three miles from either end of the trail head. It was definitely a first for us and we were glad we chose to continue on to this look out and scratch our heads over the barbell surprise.

After a quick stop at a local meat market that was calling our name every time we drove past we picked up some snack sticks and Vermont cheddar for a quick late lunch. There was one other oddity we wanted to explore and although temps were quickly dropping we scooted over to Everett Cave which is on the grounds of an old college and mansion. It is so neat that this is open to the public without charge, we hoped that there was some Dead Poets Society action happening in this cave when the college was operational. There were big orb weaver spiders, moths and lots of cave crickets but we didn’t see any bats. This stop definitely scratched a spooky season itch that I didn’t even know I had. We of course are no strangers to caves and seem to find one almost everywhere we go.

On our way out of town we snapped a pic of the Bennington battle monument and stopped for breakfast at Papa Petes. It gave me flashbacks to my days as a small town diner waitress in all the right ways. Filled with locals, random seasonal decorations all mashed together, HUGE portions, they literally have a giant pancake that is over 2lbs and is served in a pizza box. We had mini versions of the hotcakes on breakfast griddle sandwiches and grabbed a bottle of the amber Vermont maple syrup made by a local small farm. Eric refers to this sugary goodness as “liquid gold” and he is absolutely right. With full bellies and a full freezer thanks to our extremely kind Boondocker host who loaded us up with some Vermont black bear, we headed on towards our next destination.

Vermont was top of our list for the New England area because of this right here, the motherland, Ben and Jerry’s factory. After realizing my system doesn’t like dairy very much, we found that B & J’s offers a huge variety of dairy free “ice cream” and it’s actually GOOD. The factory tours fill up fast and since we didn’t know when we would be here we didn’t get tickets in advance. As we walked up there were signs saying it was sold out, bummer. BUT, we checked at the ticket booth to see if maybe we could get in on our way back through in a few days, the woman behind the counter said she literally just had two cancel for the 3:15 tour, it was 3:13… so we were IN! No pics allowed behind the scenes in the factory but the 30 minute tour was a super fun experience.

The tour itself was filled with puns, which we love, and we even got cookie dough samples as well as the flavor of the day which was Americone Dream, one of our favorites. We stopped by the flavor graveyard on the way back to our vehicle and enjoyed the clever headstones. It was a hectic/busy place, but the staff was exceptional and we were so glad to have stopped and enjoyed this ice cream dreamland. We put our pint in the freezer, popped our sticker on the van and headed to our spot near smugglers notch for the next couple nights.

The drive through smugglers notch was a little bit white knuckle even though I wasn’t the one driving… but the destination was beautiful. The notch was also beautiful but my hands were too sweaty to even hold my phone so sadly no photos. Blueberry pancakes with a crisp autumn view, yes please. Another extremely kind Boondockers host allowed us to use the wifi so I was able to spend a day writing, this is where The First Week of Van Life was written, edited and released. Blog day for me means Eric goes on a bike ride (whenever weather permits of course).

The bike monster I married tackled a 69 mile route he had written with over 6,000′ of elevation. This is not a Jo route in case you didn’t gather that already. When he arrived back at camp hours later, his face splitting grin was all I needed to see. He reported it was one of the top five rides of his life so far. A mix of champagne gravel, some more “rustic” shall we say Class IV Vermont roads, and beautiful mountain views all in the fall sunshine and crisp air. One huge difference we have noticed is that even though we have the fall colors in Michigan where we both grew up, it is flat. The mountains/rolling hills offer such variety and interest in the landscape of New York, Vermont and further east, it is continually stunning.

Another great find in the Cambridge Vermont area was the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail. Eric biked a portion of this in his big ride and rail trail is speaking my language, so we trundled on to Dansville and stopped for a ride together. We did about 25 miles out and back and enjoyed the colorful views and plentiful maple syrup farms, all that blue tubing in the background of the photo below is just one of the operations we saw along the way.

With our exercise achieved for the day we drove a fair bit and stayed just one night at a Boondockers in New Hampshire. We unfortunately arrived too late to meet our hosts and had to scoot in the morning to make the trek to Bangor. We inched closer to our first “big” destination which had been Acadia and Bangor since the planning phase of our grand depart began. We had travelled to Maine 8 years ago for our 5th anniversary but never made it to the park or Bangor as we were having too much fun eating and drinking in Portland. If you are into that sort of thing I would still highly recommend it!

Bangor brought us to another of our most anticipated stops, after our ice cream addiction was fulfilled at Ben & Jerry’s our favorite author was up next, the King himself, Stephen King that is. We grabbed a picture in front of his house which he does not live at full time anymore but apparently offers as a writers retreat. There was a little library two houses down and I had just finished a book so I found it fitting to deposit it at a free library on Stephen Kings street.

We enjoyed checking out the other King related sights such as the Paul Bunyan Statue and the stand pipe both featured in “IT”. We took a walk downtown and stopped into a book store, walked along the river that is also referenced in the book “IT” and then headed towards Orono just north of Bangor.

We grabbed pizza at Pat’s pizza, an institution in Orono established as a cafe in 1931, originally called Farnsworth Cafe after the owner, that added pizza in 1953 which became so popular they changed the name to Pat’s Pizza. Orono is also home to the University of Maine which is where King went to college. We like to think that maybe King sat in this booth at some point when he was still a college kid with one of his thousands of story details swirling in his head. We definitely got Yesterdog vibes from this place if any of you are familiar with the classic hot dog joint in Grand Rapids Michigan, this is that that but for pizza instead of hotdogs.

After grabbing the bill (less than $20 for a large pizza, coke and breadsticks, WHAT?) we headed out in the hopes of avoiding some not so pleasant weather. We went south past Acadia to a town called Searsport to ride out a day of chilly temps and rain. There was a really neat bridge/observatory and a fort to tour so we checked it out.

After a morning of troubleshooting a faulty water filter that had been giving us water pressure issues, we ordered a new one for amazon delivery and headed to the bridge. We also were having furnace issues but one major system at a time please, save that for another day. You can see the pylon of the former Penobscot Narrows bridge in the first picture above and the new bridge was built right next to it. An elevator takes you up in the spire and offers spectacular views of the river and the fall colors that are still hanging on. Entrance tickets to the observatory and the fort are only $9/person so it was a steal of a deal for an afternoon activity.

Fort Knox, not to be confused with the bouillon depository in Kentucky, is a classic example of a coastal fort. Built on the banks of the Penobscot River it was only active twice in its history and was built in the 1800’s.

We walked through the fort, chuckling at the cheesy Halloween decorations, but the structure itself was very interesting. Our favorite parts were the dark dungeon-esque hallways that required a flashlight to navigate. It definitely reminded us of some of the castles we visited in Spain.

As we wrapped up our Searsport day, we sought out a lobster roll which we were told was a must when in Maine. This spot ON the water seemed promising which featured live lobsters en masse in a warehouse on the docks. Eric’s skeptical look was based mostly on the price tag, this white bread hamburger bun with lobster/mayo and a sad piece of lettuce was $38, yes you read that right. Unfortunately we did not understand what the hype was about after splitting this roll. For a sandwich of that price point I feel like it should be hitting in the top ten and I don’t know if it even entered top 100. BUT, we tried it, and felt very Maine eating it on the docks.
We turned in early wrapping up our second full week on the road, excited to have scored a campsite in the National Park for tomorrow night. We set our alarm for 5am to ensure we could make it before the parking lots filled up because even with the government shut down, the park is thankfully still operational and apparently still hopping. We went to bed happy to be here even with the occasional hiccups in the along the way.