Vermont...In Pictures

 

This last weekend, Robb and I decided to get all romantic and adult-like and go to Vermont. A place we had never been! Adventure! We have always spoken of Vermont in an off-hand way, saying things like "When we leave the city some day and buy our farm in Vermont," without actually knowing what Vermont even looks like. And so we went! Here are a few things that we learned while there:

-The cheeses are kick-ass, every last one of them

-Every square inch is covered in greenery and lakes

-There are horse flies that look like wasps and are really annoying

-Comfortable shoes are a popular choice for the ladies

-For men, shirts are optional

-Maple syrup abounds, but covered bridges were not on every corner, as I had imagined

-Bars close at 11

We started our weekend in Brattleboro, an old town that we picked off the map and chose solely based on the art deco movie theater that was showing Harry Potter (which, mind you, we went to see on our 1-year wedding anniversary). Before the movie, we went out and had a lovely dinner which included this amazing salad: giant cubes of yellow and red watermelon and feta, drizzled with olive oil and paired with arugula and fennel. Amazing! 

 

We also got to open our card from Kurt that he gave to us on our wedding day with clear instructions not to open for a year. I particularly like the giant "Nope" over the envelope opening.

 

Brattleboro is a little bit of a new-agey town, so they had lots of great shops geared toward yogis and meditation practices and an ample selection of saris. This one shop we went into was selling old Bollywood posters (so cool!) as well as these wooden block stamps for printing fabric. (And they had this handy photo showing somebody hand-printing fabric, which was helpful. Can you believe how exact his prints are?)
 

After antiquing and other sorts of shopping and slow walking that made Robb exclaim "God, we are old," we packed up the car and headed west to go camping. (That is where we discovered the not-hornet flies!)

 

All along the drive were these gorgeous wild flower/weeds, and they reminded me SO MUCH of Heather Ross's fabric. She grew up in Vermont and it was so cool to see how much her childhood surroundings have influenced her fabric.

When I got back to town, I wrote to Heather and told her about the bright white spray flowers and the yellow globey ones and the shorter purple ones, and of course she knew what I meant, informing me that "Those white flowers are Queen Anne's Lace, which are part of the carrot / hemlock family. If you look very closely at them there is a single tiny flower in the middle of that white lacy spray that is the color of dried blood. They are named for Anne Boleyn, who favored big flat lacy white colors, upon which she shed a great deal of blood, eventually." Heather then immediately followed this information by telling me that she loves cheese. It made sense in context, I swear.

At night, while we were camping, Robb and I sat around the fire and talked about how we were probably going to run out of firewood and maybe we should go get some more firewood, but maybe it would be a better idea if we just enjoyed the fire while it lasts. We finally decided to go on a little night hike around the campground and pillaged wood abandoned by other campers, bringing back half-smoldered logs to our fire ring. On the way, I shone my flashlight on things and took these photos. They made me feel very creative. (And I swear, I was not on any hallucinogens.)

 

The next day we went to a lake...we don't know which one. There are so many in Vermont! We blew up our new handy-dandy twin air mattress and floated about for awhile. It was about as perfect as it gets. We also ate a lot of Vermont cheese. Which adds to the perfection.

And then we decided to go to a farm and pick berries. Yes, this is another activity that Robb identified as "things old people do," but I argued that it's also, in general, something that "white people do." And it turns out I was right!

  

And so we were given plastic coffee canisters--in blue for blueberries and red for raspberries--with straps so that you can wear them around your body like a real berry-picking nerd, and we were told to drive up the hill to the raspberry patch and avoid the "agitated hornets nest" near the tree. Great.

 

Turns out that picking berries is totally awesome! Just look at how much fun Robb is having!

  

And in case you were wondering, this is what a raspberry looks like before you pick it.

And this is what a raspberry looks like after. And then you eat it.

But really, I just liked to take glamorous hilltop photos of myself while Robb does all the work behind me.

And that, my friends, is why it's been over a week since my last post.