Road trip: Vermont

I have always thought I would like Vermont, but had never been there until last week. I did like it. We went there first, driving up through western Connecticut and Massachusetts via the Litchfield Hills and the Berkshires. I still haven't clicked with Massachusetts; the Berkshires, like Martha's Vineyard, seem to be very conscious that you are supposed to want to go there. But Vermont is much less so. We worked our way south to north, from Bennington to Middlebury and finally to Burlington, where we spent the night.

Unfortunately I took no pictures of Burlington, which is silly because I really liked it. It is a smallish college town, not unlike Charlottesville and Ithaca. It is near a lake, like Ithaca (Lake Champlain, in this case), and like both towns, it has a downtown pedestrian mall with fun little shops. We went to the Crow Bookshop and of course Lake Champlain Chocolates, where we ordered yummy Aztec hot chocolate. There was a ginormous farmer's market that morning (it was Saturday), and in general it looks like a very engaging, walkable town. The University of Vermont is in Burlington, and it has a law school, so hmm/brr/hmm.

We proceeded eastward through northern Vermont, taking in the leaves...

...and, as always, the political landscape.



Um, yeah. This was obviously not in Burlington.

And then across the bridge over the Connecticut River:



Well, not that bridge necessarily, but it is a neat covered bridge. To New Hampshire! Next entry. See, I told you I would really write multiple posts about this trip.