Day 33 - Ice Cream Before Lunch & Another Celebration of Sobriety


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Published: June 27th 2017
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Day 33 - Burlington, VT to Ben & Jerry's Factory Tour to Wilson House to Meredith, NH


We woke this morning in beautiful downtown Burlington, Vermont. I can't say enough about how nice this town is. Since it is a downtown hotel, there is no free hotel breakfast, so we went in search of somewhere to have breakfast. In looking at Yelp, there were several within walking distance, but most were upscale bistro's and bakeries and we were just looking for bacon and eggs. Finally, we found one called Handy Lunch which was just what we were looking for. A third generation run, since 1945, diner frequented mostly by locals and it was great!

After breakfast, we loaded up the bike and headed for our first stop of the day, the Ben & Jerry's Factory Tour. Located due east of Burlington, we followed US-2E out of town for about 27 miles. On the road out of town we passed the campus of the University of Vermont which looked great. Once out of town, US-2E was just an awesome motorcycle road through the mountains with lots of twists and turns, ups and downs, in no time we were at Ben & Jerry's. Luckily we were late starting out, because TripAdvisor showed the Ben & Jerry Factory Tours starting at 9:00 and they didn't actually start until 10:00. We arrived at 9:45 and signed up for the 10:00 tour just before it sold out. A few minutes later and we would have to hang around for the 10:30 tour.

The tourguide was hilarious, full of bad jokes and moooo references. The first part of the tour was a 7 minute film showing an animated history of Ben & Jerry's and it was very funny. Following the film, we were led to an overhead viewing room where we could look down on the ice cream being made and packaged. Today's flavor was Pistachio-Pistachio and the tourguide walked us through each of the stations during the manufacturing process and explained teh function of each person and machine. Even though Ben & Jerry's had been bought out by a conglomerate in the 90's, it still had it's own board of directors, and still used local products, all non-GMO ingredients, and contributes heavily to social and environmental causes. After the factory portion of the tour, we were brought to the tasting room, where we were given samples of Triple Caramel Ice Cream and it was delicious! Surprisingly, that was the same flavor we both had picked last night when we visited Charles Street Marketplace in Burlington.

When we finished our samples, we ended up in the gift shop where they just happened to have perfect Ben & Jerry's t-shirts for both of us. the whole tour took about 30 minutes, and we were surprised at how small the factory was and how few people it took to make all that ice cream. There are a couple of other Ben & Jerry factories, but 80% of their products worldwide come from the factory we visited.

After Ben & Jerry's, we hopped on the bike again and headed south on VT-100S and it turned out to be an even better road than US-2E. It was actually called a Scenic Byway, and followed a stream which was visible most of the time. There were a couple of waterfalls visible from the road, and the twists and turns, ups and downs were even more enjoyable. It was really just a great motorcycle ride! Eventually we ended up on US-7S as we headed into East Dorset, VT.

The Wilson House in East Dorset, VT was the second half of our AA pilgrimage. After visiting Dr. Bob's house in Akron, OH, we also wanted to visit the other co-founder of AA, Bill Wilson's house in East Dorset, VT. Bill Wilson was actually born in a bedroom of a hotel owned by his grandparents called the Griffin House which was renamed Wilson House when Bill's parents took over. It has been mostly restored, and is now operating as a 13 room hotel. the rooms are restored to their original look without television or Wi-Fi and are available for overnight stays. During the original trip planning, I had considered staying there, but it wasn't really in a town with anything else to do. But we did tour the house, and watched a DVD on the history and restoration of the hotel. There was a church next door, and across the churchyard from the hotel was a place called the Griffin Library which was actually the boyhood home of Bill Wilson where he lived until he took off for the military. The Griffin Library was full of AA related books which date back to the early development of the organization along with an upstairs recreation of Bill's boyhood bedroom. In the back of the hotel was a large AA Meeting room, with all kinds of AA related automobile vanity tags. It would have been nice to attend a meeting there, but it was getting time to head out.

It was almost 2:30 when we left East Dorset, and the skies were looking bad. So we put on our rainsuits and headed out. It was a 3 hour ride to Meredith, NH to visit with my sister Paulette and her husband Kevin at their retirement home on Lake Winnisquam. The first 2.5 hours were great! There were some showers along the way, but never really bad, and our rainsuits kept us fairly comfortable. We traveled mostly on US-4E and NH-104E and it was a very scenic ride in spite of the rain. But by the time we reached about 30 minutes outside of Meredith, we all of a sudden found ourselves facing the dreaded "Pavement Ends" sign. By now, the rain had stopped and the road was fairly dry and hard packed, and we were only a few miles away.

As we turned from dirt road to pavement and back to dirt again, it occurred to me that I had never asked Paulette if the roads in her area were paved, not a question I normally think to ask. Eventually the dirt roads turned into pavement and stayed that way until Paulette & Kevin's dirt and gravel driveway which I had expected. When I asked about the dirt roads, it turned out that I had been a victim of the Garmin Lady once again, and that there was a better and paved way to their house without having to encounter dirt again. Tomorrow, we will stick to the paved roads!

Once we unpacked and settled in, Paulette & Kevin gave us the complete tour. This is really a great place! Inside is modern and comfortable, and outside they have added a garden, and chicken coops, and are really settling in to retired life. They look like they are really enjoying "Lake Life" and have settled in nicely. We took a trip into town to the Route 104 Diner for dinner and caught up on things around the family. Paulette & Kevin's retirement life is so different from Jody & I, but we all agree it is much better than the daily grind of work!

Tomorrow, Jody & I head out to do run a few errands and do some more tourist stuff, hopefully the weather will oblige!

263.4 Miles Today

5175.2 Miles Total

4.050 Gallons Today

126.425 Gallons Total


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Tot: 0.073s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 31; dbt: 0.0389s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.1mb