Burlington to Montpelier
Breakfast was in a diner next to the motel. It was good food in a traditional railway-carriage style diner. The two blokes cooking the eggs were working non-stop.
We then spent some time kerb-crawling around the Vermont University campus looking for Williams Hall, home of WHAMKA -- Williams Hall American Museum of Kitch Art. Once in the building, we had trouble finding the gallery. The whole campus was pretty much dead, but there was one student hanging around in the entrance, who we asked. He said he'd never heard of it. We poked around a bit, feeling like trespassers, then gave up. Debbie had already left the building when I opened an inconspicuos door and was greeted by a tiny corridor packed with kitch. WHAMKA is the work of a professor, who seems to have just commandeered the corridor outside his office and turned it into a shrine to kitch.
With that, we had seen all we needed to in Burlington, and started our way towards Montpelier.
What one would expect to do between Burlington and Montpelier is to visit the Ben & Jerry's ice cream factory. We decided we weren't going to today, because although there are tours on weekends, no manufacturing goes on. We'll go tomorrow.
On the way to Montpelier we stopped to look at the round church in Richmond. It was built by a number of different congregations, but they had a disagreement and the church became a town meeting place. Now it's just a museum piece, but it's pretty.
We stumbled on a car boot sale on the way to Montpelier and came away with:
- Two troll dolls (the seller correctly observed that it was a joke purchase -- we told her we had a bridge in mind to put them under)
- Two gameboy games: Tetris and Pokemon
- Sega Smash Pack for Dreamcast
Aside from all that stuff, there was more kitch on display in the boot sale than the professor at Vermont University Art Department could dream of. The trolls were as nothing.
In Montpelier, tiny Montpelier, Vermont's state capital, we parked up and put some money in the meter. Then we realised it was the wrong meter, and put some money in the right one. Then we realised parking was free at weekends. Oops.
We ate at Subway; our first in two visits to the US because Debbie had an unfounded fear of the place, now cured. The girl who served us claimed to be from Edinburgh, and I believe her, but her summer working in Seattle and Monpelier had left its mark on her accent.
From there we went to look at a Maple Syrup farm nearby, where we watched a short video of an old codger describing the sap harvesting and syrup making process. Up in the hills of Vermont, it's very green this time of year.
We ate some maple ice cream, then went motel hunting. It got a bit fraught but we found a nice one in the end.
The hotel TV had video inputs suitable for the Gamecube, so Debbie got to experience Super Monkey Ball for the first time. She has yet to beat me at Monkey Target. Hah!
Dinner was at a steak house called "Steak House". My 1LB steak was quite the biggest chunk of meat I've ever seen on a plate... except for those 72oz ones in Texas...
I finished it. Debbie was very impressed. It proves my masculinity you know.