Maura in Vermont: Camping, Morris Dancers, Art and Cheese

Over Memorial Day weekend Maura, Jennifer and I went camping in Vermont. We stayed at Fort Dummer State Park, just outside of Brattleboro. The trip was strain on our family budget but worth it. Everyone had a wonderful time. It certainly helped that the weather was near perfect, with only a few drops of rain, plenty of sunshine and none of the storms that the forecast had suggested were possible. We loaded up the car and headed for Vermont first thing on Saturday morning. We arrived well before check-in time but our campsite was ready so were able to unload, set up camp and head out to enjoy Brattleboro and its environs. We walked around Downtown Brattleboro for a while, window shopping and exploring art galleries and visited the local yarn shop (Jennifer knits).

After a break for a picnic lunch we headed out of town for the afternoon. We headed north on Route 5 through Putney and Bellows Falls and looped back through Grafton down to Route 30 which we followed back to Brattleboro. Mostly we drove and enjoyed the scenery but we made a few stops along the way. In Putney we stopped at Basketville, a large basket shop selling baskets from all over the world and displaying basket animals in the rafters. The shark was particularly impressive. It is about life size. In the same building was the Putney Mountain Winery. Jennifer and I tasted some of their wines and Maura got to taste their non-alcoholic cider. All the wines were made from local fruit and there was an interesting variety. Our favorite was the Apple-Maple wine. We purchased a bottle to enjoy later. A little further down the road we stopped at Harlow’s Sugar House to pick up some locally produced maple syrup. We bought grade B, with a stronger maple flavor and darker color than the grade A dark amber we buy in the grocery store. It doesn’t make sense to bring syrup from home to Vermont. In Grafton we stopped at the Grafton Cheese Company shop. We sampled cheese and decided we would purchase some later at their Brattleboro location before we left Vermont on Monday so we wouldn’t have to worry about keeping it refrigerated in camp.

Back in Brattleboro we watched the morris dancers perform at the annual Marlboro Morris Ale. Morris dance teams were in Brattleboro from the local region and from as far away as Vancouver, Canada. The Morris dance is an English folk dance often danced at festivals in the spring. It involves complex figures and athletic moves. The dances are accompanied by live music and the teams include musicians. The dancing was fun to watch and to listen to. Jennifer and Maura enjoyed it so much that we’re already talking about going back to see it again next year.

On our second day we started with a hike. It turned into the low point of our trip. We hiked on the Retreat Farm trails on the outskirts of Brattleboro. The trails were nice but the clouds of mosquitoes were so thick that they drove us out of the woods, despite the heavy application of insect repellent. We retreated to camp to rest from our ordeal, and then went out again after lunch.

In the afternoon we visited the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center where we enjoyed their current exhibitions of contemporary art. After that we drove the Molly Stark Trail, Vermont route 9, through the Green Mountains to Wilmington, where we did some more window shopping. Along the way we stopped at the scenic overlook on Hogback Mountain to enjoy the view looking out on three states. Then it was back to camp for a bonfire, dinner cooked in foil in the coals and s’mores, which we have to make sometime on every camping trip. In the morning we broke camp, packed up and headed home, stopping before we left Vermont to buy cheese at the Grafton Cheese Company in Brattleboro as we had planned.