The Lunch Box Journals

Burlington, VT to St Johnsbury, VT (US 2 with a couple side trips!)
Northern Vermont is the tale of two sides of the Green Mountains, a low, rugged chain of mountains that divide the north between the Lake Champlain Valley on the west and the Connecticut River Valley to the east. This is stunningly beautiful country, mountains that are not particularly tall but eroded crags of granite covered with a dense layer of forest resting on a very thin layer of top soil. Even though the highways follow waterways for the most part, they twist and turn through narrow canyons under a canopy of green.

Nestled along a line of hills that rise sharply from the eastern shore of Lake Chaplain is Burlington, Vermont’s largest city with about 45,000 people, dubbed the “Queen City.” This is the heart of Bernie Sander’s country, home to the University of Vermont. Friends in Portland would feel right at home, a righteous social consciousness permeates the air and everything is about the saving the environment! Streets rise sharply from the lake front and are a bit of a challenge for the Lunch Box to navigate. I am staying at North Beach Campground, a public park just north of the city on Lake Champlain. Standing on the beach, the view to the southeast is of the shore curving around to the city of Burlington, to the southwest across Lake Champlain to the Adirondack Mountains of New York.

The city center is a mix of retail, restaurants and bars focused on a pedestrian mall on Church Street. In 1962 an architecture student at the University of Vermont visited a pedestrian mall in Denmark and brought the idea home to Vermont. Nearly 20 years from concept to fruition, the Church Street Marketplace opened in 1981. The street has two focal points. The north end is anchored by the 1816 Unitarian Church, the oldest surviving church in Burlington.

The mall stretches for four blocks along Church Street.

Cross streets give a view down the hill to Lake Champlain and the New York mountains to the west.

The other notable fact about downtown Burlington is the existent of a large mall that fronts on the Church Street Marketplace, anchored by a Macy’s. The facades of the period buildings are intact, the interior is a modern mall that climbs down the hill towards Lake Champlain.

The waterfront is home to the docks where ferries transport people across the lake to New York (the nearest bridges to New York are about 50 miles to the north and south) and offer tourist cruises around the lake.

About 8 miles south of the city center is a spot that any self-respecting grandpa can’t pass up, the Vermont Teddy Bear Company.

Vermont Teddy Bear Company

Arts and crafts are a big thing in Vermont with many people selling their creations at farmer’s markets and street fairs. The Vermont Teddy Bear Company was started in 1983 by John Sortino who created and sold hand-crafted teddy bears at local fairs. He was so successful that the Vermont Teddy Bear Company came into being and now teddy bears are created at two factories in Vermont. The company creates a number of different types of teddy bears, on display at the entrance to the factory floor.

The factory is not large (the packaging and shipping area is the largest part of the complex) and as we tour craftsmen are hard at work. Not sure that I could sit at a sewing machine 8 hours a day!  An interesting note is that the stuffing of the bears is shredded recycled plastic bottles.

All Vermont Teddy Bears come with a lifetime warranty. If damaged they can be returned to the factory where they are admitted to the Teddy Bear Hospital for any necessary surgery and recuperation.

Of course, the tour ends at the ubiquitous store, where numerous opportunities to spend a lot of money are present. These bears are not inexpensive, and the cute little outfits run $15-$20. A nod to the past political season is available with a Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton team available for purchase (note the hair on Donald and the pearls on Hillary – no detail is missed!)

Fun!

Before leaving Burlington I stop at the top of a hill north of town and take one last picture looking west over Lake Champlain to the Adirondacks.

Heading east on US 2 the interior of western Vermont with the Green Mountains (they look larger in the picture then they really are) opens up as the road twists and turns through the narrow valleys.  Note that my luck with the weather has run out.  The remnants of Hurricane Harvey have made their way northeast and it’s going to be cool and wet for the next week or so.

Just north of the town of Waterbury is an icon to all who love ice cream, the original Ben and Jerry’s ice cream factory.

Ben and Jerry’s

The original Ben and Jerry’s is not very large, with most of the production taking place in one room that is about 50’ square (there are three other factories elsewhere in the US.) I wish I could show you pictures of the place but interestingly enough Ben and Jerry’s bans photographs of the interior of the factory. I was politely but firmly chastised after taking a picture of the murals lining the stairs leading to the actual factory room. However, just the one picture is enough to give you an idea of the “flavor” of the place…

The décor throughout is “country cow”…  I can report that the company takes its’ societal obligations very seriously. In a very “Vermont” kind of way, the entire presentation was woven around messages of environmental consciousness, corporate responsibility, etc., as the goal of Ben and Jerry’s to change the world via ice cream was repeatedly brought up.  Interspersed amongst the propaganda were cow jokes:

“Do you know why cows wear bells around their neck?  Because their “horns” don’t work!”

“Do you know what they call a cow right after she gives birth?  De-calf-feinated!”

The best part was at the end when a free sample of ice cream was distributed (“Milk and Cookies” today!). Definitely worth sitting through the propaganda…

Montpelier
The journey continues with a brief stop in Montpelier, the capital city of Vermont. With a population of around 8,000 people Montpelier is the smallest state capital in the United States, and dare I say, the most cramped. Huddled in a very narrow valley there is absolutely no opportunity for me to park and roam the historic city. The few pictures I get to take are shot from the Lunch Box while I’m stopped at a traffic light. Note how narrow the street is…

I pull into a state permit parking lot to shoot the picture of the capital building but an attendant politely hurries me on my way.

The highway climbs up the Green Mountains just outside of Montpelier as I make a brief detour off US 2 to visit Rock of Ages, site of the mining of one of Vermont’s most prized exports, Vermont granite.

Rock of Ages
The first quarry outside of Graniteville opened in 1895. Today’s factory sits below the quarry, the edge is visible to the upper right in the picture below.

Essentially one enormous room, the enormous factory floor is deserted as I happen to visit during the lunch hours.

At one side the carver’s station has two columns in progress.

The remnants of Hurricane Harvey are beginning to hit the northeast and its’ too cold and windy to take the tour up to the quarry so I settle for a picture from a display. This is what the quarry looks like!

In the late 1950’s the company experimented with marketing granite as a material for bowling alleys. A prototype was built outside of the factory but the idea never really took off. The most interesting thing about the display is that it inadvertently turned into an advertisement of the benefits of granite vs. concrete. Note the condition of the marble alley floor compared to the concrete gutters…

The road now begins to descend towards the other side of northern Vermont, the hills bordering the Connecticut River. The land continues to be green and rugged with the occasional small family farm appearing amongst the trees.

Views to the west now look over the Connecticut River Valley hidden in the forests and hills to the White Mountains of New Hampshire in the distance.

St. Johnsbury
The three counties of Vermont on the eastern side of the Green Mountains (Essex, Orleans, and Caledonia) are known in Vermont as the Northeast Kingdom, or “NEK”. St. Johnsbury, our next destination, is the largest town in the NEK with a population of around 7,500 people. The story of St. Johnsbury is the story of the Fairbanks family. Thaddeus Fairbanks was a local wagon maker who built a foundry in 1823 to forge two of his inventions, a cast iron plow and a stove. A year later his brother Erastus joined the successful business but the key development in the history of the company (and St. Johnsbury) occurred in 1830 when Thaddeus invented the platform scale. The timing was perfect, the Industrial Age was just beginning across the world and by 1860 over 1,000 workers toiled in the factories of St. Johnsbury and Fairbanks Scales were the best known American product around the world. The community reflected the wealth generated by the Fairbanks Company in a restrained, New England kind-of-way. and many of the buildings and homes built in the late 1800’s still stand and are in use today. Most of the large homes maintain their historical façade but have been converted to apartments over the years.

The town climbs the steep hills on the north bank of the Passumpic River. Main Street, on the hill above, is the home for government, schools, and stretching east, many large stately homes. The intersection of Main Street and Eastern Avenue (leading down to Railroad Street, the main commercial area) was the center of the government and social life of St. Johnsbury in the last half of the 19th century. The Firehouse, Fairbanks Block (1892) and St. Johnsbury House (1850) face Eastern Avenue on the north side of Main Street.

The Athenaeum was presented to the town of St. Johnsbury by the Fairbanks family in 1871 and still serves as the local public library.

The interior is a stunning example of Victorian architecture, complete with carved balusters and copper spiral staircases.

An art gallery in the year contains an original Albert Bierstadt, “Domes of Yosemite” on the back wall. (Lighting issues due to the skylight made taking a good picture difficult.)

Across from the Athenaeum is a small commercial block. Main Street to the east passes the Fairbanks Museum and a number of magnificent churches and Victorian homes.

A block off of Main Street is Summer School (1864).

Eastern Avenue curves down from Main Street to Railroad Avenue, the main commercial area along the railroad tracks.

The Railroad Avenue area is a bustling are of shops and offices. The canyon is so narrow that modern commercial development (auto dealerships, large grocery store, etc.) are all a couple miles northeast of downtown St. Johnsbury along Hwy 5.

Again, narrow streets and lack of RV suitable parking on Railroad Street limits me to taking pictures while stopped at the stop sign.

All in all, a very interesting stop at the edge of the Northeast Kingdom.

Next up: The Great North Woods