Ben and Jerry’s plus Montpelier, VT

The day started off beautiful as every day in Vermont had for us. This one was a little different however because we were leaving the 1st campsite of our trip. It was a bit sad, as it was a truly spectacular campsite. Not to many times in camping have I had a waterfront campsite on one of the bigger lakes in the USA. We packed up, emptied our dirty water tanks from the van and we were off. Our 1st stop of the day was Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream headquarters.

We drove down curvy I-89 as it made its way through the mountains and valleys into north-central Vermont. Soon enough though we had arrived in tiny Waterbury, VT, home to Ben & Jerry’s. We exited off the highway and down a steep and sharp 2-lane road until we came upon the factory & visitors center. It was much smaller than either of us had expected. The parking lot was, as the entire facility was on levels as it was built into a hill as much of the rest of Waterbury is. We parked the van and walked down and around to the entrance. The entrance was on the opposite side of the building and as you walked around you were greeted with a multi tiered patio with great views of the surrounding mountains. We walked into the entrance/gift shop and signed up for a tour. The tour starts with a short history of the company as well as many ice cream/cow/milk puns. Some were good and some should have hit the “Rocky Road”. After the history lesson you take in a view of the factory floor itself. The day that we were there was a cleaning day between production of difference ice creams. We were disappointed that we didn’t get to see any actual ice cream being produced but all the workers were wearing white hazmat looking suits which looked like something out of Dr. Evil’s lair in the Austin Powers movies. It does take 8 hours to clean between the different flavors of ice cream production so I guess hazmat suits are acceptable. The tour ended with a free sample, which was probably why everyone was on the tour in the first place. From there we went outside to their ice cream shop where you can get every single flavor that Ben & Jerry’s makes. This was pretty neat as when ever you are in your local grocery store there are usually only a few different varieties to choose from. I got their mango sorbet and Julie tasted chocolate therapy and truffle kerfluffel. After our ice cream we visited their “Ice Cream Graveyard”. This was a small cemetery looking plot of land with tombstones with every flavor that they no longer produce. We were told that the only flavor to ever come out of the graveyard once it went in was their coffee flavor “Coffee, Coffee BuzzBuzzBuzz!”.

We had our fill of ice cream and it was onto the next destination for the day. We got back on I-89 and headed to the capital of Vermont, Montpelier. It didn’t take long and before we knew it we were exiting off the highway and into the smallest capitol city in the union. (We would learn later that Montpelier only has 8000 permanent residents). We parked the van on a side street and started our journey toward the center of town. Montpelier is pretty hilly as all of central Vermont is and the main streets were bunched tightly together. Julie and I were not quite sure what there was to look at but we figured that we should probably go take a look at the state house. It being 93 degree’s that day made the decision pretty easy to try to find something inside to do. We found the gold domed statehouse and after a few pictures with the tulips in front we wanted to find out if just anyone could go in and take a look around. The answer was surprisingly yes. You can walk right in the front door of the Vermont state house with no one looking at you twice. There was no security or no guards to direct you or tell you that you’re someplace that you could not be. After walking around the first floor for a while we went upstairs where state reps & senators were hanging out. It seemed that a session had just ended so we walked into the House of Representatives. The room was massive with every representative’s spot neatly labeled. We sat in the back for a bit taking the room in. It was pretty neat being in an actual room where state laws are debated and passed. After we left the House of Representatives we were walking around looking at some civil war artifacts when some of the Reps did stop us. We thought that they were going to tell us that we were not supposed to be there but again no. They just wanted to talk and see what we thought of the place and told a few jokes. Overall it was pretty neat and refreshing to see how open the government in Vermont to their public seemed to be. Once we left the state house we wandered the downtown for a bit more grabbing a bite to eat as well as stopping at a bike store to pick up a bike lock that I apparently had left days before back in Rochester.

Our stop for that night was in Graniteville, which was not too far from Montpelier. It was our last night in Vermont. We drove the van (Bubbles) to her home for the night at the Lazy Lion Campground. After we checked in we pulled over and backed into our site. After we parked it seemed to me that something was a bit off. After stepping down from the drivers seat the ground seemed extremely damp which was strange since it had been sunny and in the 90’s the past few days. Looking around the van around the back tires the ground had formed a sort of hump towards the outside tires as the weight of the van had pushed the earth up. This was a little concerning as it was supposed to rain that night. We thought we should ask for a different site. As Julie walked over to the office I tried to slowly drive back onto the camp road. I got about 15 feet, then, uh-oh…..the van would not go any further. It was stuck. I got out and sure enough both back tires were sunk down about 5-6” in the mud. Julie came back with the owner of the campground who was laughing a little bit but said that it was no problem; he would be able to get us out. Surely we were not the first that this had happened to. One of the other workers came over with a tractor and we attached a rope from the tractor to a spot under the car. After a short few minutes of the tractor pulling “Bubbles” was free! Yay!!!! We were able to park in the next site over which had gravel so we were in no danger of getting stuck. Julie and I laughed to ourselves later on that night as for the first few days of the trip nothing had happened, then bam…stuck. Not bad though for newbies to the whole traveling by RV thing.

Next up…..New Hampshire!