{"id":592,"date":"2005-05-04T22:49:00","date_gmt":"2005-05-05T03:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/2005\/05\/04\/\/"},"modified":"2005-10-16T02:03:36","modified_gmt":"2005-10-16T06:03:36","slug":"the-green-mountain-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/2005\/05\/04\/the-green-mountain-state\/","title":{"rendered":"The Green Mountain State"},"content":{"rendered":"
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E has already written about our Vermont trip<\/a> a couple of weeks ago.<\/p>\n

The trip had its origins in the All American Festivals show on Food Network. They visited the Vermont Maple Festival last year and featured it on one episode of their program, which I happened to see. Unlike all of the BBQ festivals they show (and which always leave me ravenously hungry), this one was actually within driving distance — I said that I wanted to go.<\/p>\n

We all continued to bat the idea around over the next few months, one or the other of us bringing it up after something chanced to remind us of the idea. Eventually our plans began to crystallize: with Anime Boston the weekend following, we would go up on Saturday, spend the night and come back on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Then, of course, the people in charge of Anime Boston proved they were a bunch of immature asshats<\/a> and suddenly that was off the schedule. Which is why, at the end of last month, we decided instead to go up on Friday and spend two nights. This would also give us all of Saturday to spend at the festival instead of just the afternoon.<\/p>\n

This was a great plan, and worked out to perfection. The hotel was surprisingly nice, especially the bathroom, which had nice tiles on the floor, a big wide tub and a color scheme that I actually liked rather than could tolerate. But this promising start was not to be wholly fulfilled. <\/p>\n

The weather was uncooperative, being overcast for the whole weekend, with periods of drizzle and showers and torrential downpours. We got up in the morning on Saturday and headed up to the festival, where we parked at the first lot we found. A mistake as it turns out, but we weren’t to know. We started walking and walking, eventually passing the center of town and getting directions to the pancake breakfast from some people who knew where it was. A hike and a half later, we were sitting down with 2 pancakes, 2 sausage links and a slice of cheese for $6. Dennys provides a lot more food for that much money. But it was tasty, and I was hungry and damp, so I ate it all, along with a bowl of ice cream. We trudged back to the center of down, but the rain had put a damper on our enthusiasm for looking at things, and so after a dispirited wander through the exhibit hall and a quick trek through the craft area (where catnip was purchased), we headed back to the car. The antique show occupied another 10 or 15 minutes, and then out we went, heading for the Teddy Bear Factory.<\/p>\n

We tooled around there for a little while, but didn’t really feel like waiting the half hour it would have taken for the next tour to begin, so left again. We stopped by the cider mill on the way back and got some venison sticks (very good!) and cider donuts (mmmm, donuts). Back at the hotel we lazed around and watched a bit of television before departing for dinner. Exciting downtown Waterbury was our destination.<\/p>\n

Dinner was okay. Probably up to the standard of most chain restaurants, but I like to hope that a non-chain place will have something more interesting than that, and I can’t say that Arvad’s really did. After an abortive attempt to have a drink and a game of pool next door, we went off to a place Carl had spotted earlier. After an excellent start on our bowling game by me, Bob managed to eke out a win before a wardrobe malfunction brought our evening to an early and abrupt end.<\/p>\n

Food Network filled the rest of the evening and soon it was Sunday. After a delicious breakfast of rubber slathered in cream cheese, and an exciting time with not-sure-what-she’s-doing desk girl, we arrived at Ben and Jerry’s shortly before their next factory tour was to begin. The important part: the free samples were Chocolate Pudding and Caramel Chip (or whatever the actual names were). They were good. I’d like some of the pudding right now, actually.<\/p>\n

Our final stop was the Cabot annex, where we gorged on cheese samples before getting on the road back to civilisation. We arrived home around 2, had Pizza Hut for lunch, and then returned to our regularly scheduled lounging.<\/p>\n

All in all a good weekend, but I’ll be giving the Maple Festival a big pass next year. Not at all worth the time.<\/p>\n

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E has already written about our Vermont trip a couple of weeks ago. The trip had its origins in the All American Festivals show on Food Network. They visited the Vermont Maple Festival last year and featured it on one episode of their program, which I happened to see. Unlike all of the BBQ festivals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}