Vermont Stops

The Bennington Battle Monument is much taller than I thought it would be.  It’s 306 feet 4-1/2 inches tall and is the tallest structure in Vermont.  You can take an elevator up to see 3 states (Vermont, New York, and Massachusetts).  The view is quite beautiful!  Surprisingly, it was only $112,000 to build back in 1891.

I thought this kettle was cool.  Not because it was used by British General Burgoyne’s camp during the Battle of Saratoga, but because it used to be placed in the center of the obelisk at floor level.  Before the elevator, people would climb the stairs to see the view and drop coins 200 feet down into this kettle.  I bet that was interesting!
 

This is Old First Church built in 1805.  In the cemetery behind it is the grave of poet Robert Frost (“Two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference..”).  Given the construction and the difficulties of parking an RV, we didn’t stop so this is a drive-by.  By the way, we seem to have more difficulty with driving an RV and pulling a car in this trip than in our Southwestern trip.  Maybe we’re making more stops to small places without big parking lots for RV’s.  Or, the Southwest doesn’t have trees with branches that scrape the top.  Or the mountains are higher than the flat desert.  But it’s been more difficult! 

 

Another drive-by.  Lake Champagne but no site of Champ.  Champ is the American version of Nessie who is supposed to live in Lake Champagne.

Flowers at the Vermont Wildflower Farm. Speaking of flowers…I’ve been living in the Southwest or Florida for the last 2 years.  Now that I’m back in the East, I’ve found that I’m sensitive to ragweed.  It’s driving me crazy, but the corner pharmacy helps!

 

Round Church that’s really 16-sided.  The story goes is that it is shaped this way so the Devil couldn’t find a corner to hide in.

We stopped at a Rock of Ages granite company.  Everything was granite there.  I’ve never seen granite sidewalks.  Here is a fancy granite sided building, a granite bench and then a dust collector for the factory.  I loved one sign they had.  In the 2009 Star Trek movie, the young James Kirk drives a car over a cliff.  That was their quarry wall.