2 Oct 2023
This morning started out a bit strange- we are obviously at a higher elevation than I realized because we drove through clouds!
I struggled to get a good picture shooting from the car:
And this isn’t the worst of it- it was like driving through fog for a while!
I spotted this cool waterfall from the road:
but the path to get to it was damaged in the flood:
Our first stop- Cold Hollow Cider Mill:
Where we grabbed some freshly made apple cider donuts:
and hot apple cider- a delicious breakfast!
We also got to see how cider is made:
and pressed:
And sampled some as well- it was tasty, but we both preferred it hot, so we went back for seconds 🙂
Matt tried an apple, bacon, Vermont cheese sandwich from their kitchen (which he throughly enjoyed)
I rolled my ankle yesterday so today’s hike needed to be easy (and less populated)- enter Kirchner Woods:
Just a short drive from our donut stop, off another unpaved road, was this great forest at the site of an old sugar shack. Plus, look at all those ready-to-use hiking sticks! I picked one out, then set it down to switch camera lenses and forgot to grab it again 🙁
They even had printed maps, which Matt throughly enjoyed!
They also had snakes, which Matt did not enjoy:
but just the one, and he was a little guy!
Old syrup collecting bucket along with a trail marker:
The paths were very well marked (another thing Matt appreciated).
Yellow mushroom:
These leaves were all like this- red on one side, green on the other:
I’m not sure what those trunk nuggets are, but this tree was covered in them!
Nugget innards:
Another tree reclaiming a bucket:
Another good 2+ mile hike! And as a reward, ice cream!
The original Ben & Jerry’s is in the area and it felt wrong to not stop, though it’s apparently the touristy thing to do:
We waited in this line for about half and hour, which gave us time to pick out our flavors:
Coffee, Coffee, Buzzbuzzbuzz for me, Salted Caramel Blondie for Matt:
I’m 17.5 pints tall!
Looking across Lake Champlain to New York:
We’ve officially put 1000 miles on our rental car!
One last bridge, Halpin:
This one was, again, off an unmarked dirt road, but I’m really glad we stopped
Look at the cool joinery!
