Road Trip: Waterbury to Waitsfield and Back

I have come to the conclusion that Northern New England is not a place you want to be a tourist during the month of April.  Several times, I have attempted to do the 'spontaneous tourist' thing both locally and in northern New Hampshire and come up short.  Today was no exception.

 

Due to the cold temperatures and wind, we did not partake in any of the outdoor activities we had planned for the day.  However, it was a bright sunny day, and right around lunch time, we ("we", two of the residents of the house were quite content to remain in said house...) decided we needed to at least go for a drive.  We let Little Man pick the direction and off we went down Route 100 on our adventure.  Now, as I previously stated, the other three seasons of the year this would have been a perfect idea.  This is the perfect ski town, with views that would be stunning in the fall and several shopping areas, swimming holes and walking paths that would have been perfect in the summer. (But it's really just a boring, blah beige, somebody light my socks on fire to relieve the boredom sort of place during mud season.) 

 

Our first stop of the day; and keeping with tradition, was this little coffee shop with a trendy emporium of funky gifts next to it.  We started by going to the emporium where we met a friendly dog named Collete and Andy found these really cool fish he wanted (unfortunately they were $300+ and just not in the current budget)(Okay, cool fish they were. Large wall hangings made of painted wood and antiqued brass. I coulda made one of my own if the owner of this blog hadn't kept me from photographing the ones in the shop to use as examples. Something about protecting the artist's living or being polite or something...)  Once we left the emporium we headed next door for some coffee.  Unfortunately, this particular spot is more of a grab and go coffee spot and the only tables are outside by the river.  It was a little less windy here, so we sat by the river until the wind kicked back up and headed for the car. 

While we were sitting and sipping on coffee, we had a wonderful river view of this particular bridge.  This bridge came into play several times during the trip, because despite the fact that we had picked up the local tourist map at the emporium, we ended up at this bridge several times during this trip.  it was like National Lampoon's Vacation except we kept ended up at the bridge instead of the Arc de Triumph.  (Again, not "we". I spent years professionally navigating for a delivery truck driven by the Chief Furniture Moving Monkey, who could develop grumpy spells of epic proportions if the directions were not perfect. {Sorry, Bro!} Today's navigator, in contrast, has been known to say things such as "turn up at the blue road" and "I think we were just here". Rookie.)

 Before we left the coffee shop, we mapped out our travel route.(There's that "we" stuff again...)  A route that looked like it would be prefect.  Once again, we found some major problems with using the local tourist map as our guide.  This short cut ended up being a muddy up hill climb to the other road.  However, I will admit the views and houses at the top were amazing and may have been worth the muddy uphill climb.  (The hundred-foot drop off to the right of the vehicle was also quite spectacular, and contributed to the amazing views. Note that the photo below was taken from the driver's seat - driver using one hand and most of his attention to snap a photo while only barely managing to control the pitching and sliding vehicle with the other. No worries, mate.)



Since most of our other trips have involved a trip to some sort of museum or science center, Little Man has come to expect the presence of one on the trip.  About every five minutes, the sleepy child in the back would perk up and ask when we were going to find a museum.  The bridge that we kept ending up at had a museum of industrial design next to it, however, Andy refused to stop at it. (Dammit, we're trying to get away from that bridge, not stop at it!)  So on the back we stopped at the Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Museum.  Unfortunately the train was broken, but Little Man found a million other buttons to push and things to manipulate.  He even learned how to carry coffee beans the correct way (I prefer to carry my coffee beans in their finished state - brewed into a cup.) and when all the button pushing was done we relaxed on the sunny deck and were finally able to soak up some of the sun.  

 Oh, and did I mention that I bought chocolate for the lounge on the deck?  Wonderfully smooth chocolate from Laughing Moon Chocolates.