Vermont

After leaving Alan's, we stopped to get groceries --- we are back to doing our own cooking. Fuel was running low, so we kept an eye out for service stations that have diesel. Since our route took us through residential areas, we didn't see any. When we finally spotted one, we went in and took on 15.5 gallons at $3.99. Afterwards, all the diesel we saw was $3.89!

When we got onto the Hero islands, we found that the North Hero State Park campground was closed for the season. So we checked in at Grand Isle State Park on South Hero. It's a very nice campground with widely-spaced grass sites. After checking in we continued to drive north to look over the countryside.

The Vermont countryside is scenic rural anywhere you look.

We drove north as far as the North Hero State Park and then back down to the bottom of South Hero. When we returned to the campground, we walked down to the "beach." It is coarse shale with a scummy edge. No sand to collect here.









When we left the next day, there was a line at the dump station. So what's the rush, we're on vacation, right? On the way off South Hero, we couldn't resist this antique store:

Our next destination was Montpelier, the capitol of Vermont. We managed to find parking for the motorhome downtown, right next to a parking space that provided a charging station for electric cars. Montpelier is an interesting combination of the latest technology in the midst of interesting old buildings.

Late in the afternoon, we drove out to Morse Maple Sugar Farm, just north of Montpelier. They are members of Harvest Hosts, a group of farms and vineyards that allow RVs to park overnight on the property for free. These places all have farm stores or tasting rooms, and RVs taking advantage of their hospitality are encouraged to visit the stores and buy something. We did, and spent more than if we had stayed in a campground, but we got a number of things to use as presents.

Our parking/camping site at Morse Farm

Besides buying some things from the store, we saw a video about sugaring, then tasted the various grades of maple syrup and determined our favorite. We now consider ourselves maple syrup connoisseurs.

Next morning we spent some more time in downtown Montpelier, including breakfast at the Skinny Pancake, a crepe restaurant, and a little more shopping. Time to head back to Virginia; but our route took us down Vermont 100, a beautiful, winding road through the forests and parts of the Green Mountains. This drive in itself was worth the trip to Vermont. But we will have to go back again, because we breezed right by a beautiful waterfall before we were aware of it.

Leaving the mountain road at Rutland, we bent our course toward New York and I-81. Checking our resources, we found no campgrounds in the northern half of Pennsylvania near I-81. Gene had looked up a Passport America site (half-price camping) but didn't write down enough information and they weren't in the book. Jean found something in the FMCA Atlas and made contact. It was hard to find and we wound around in the countryside for a long time. Finally, after two wrong turns, we found it and got a site. Surprisingly, it was almost full of big trailers (mostly people working in a nearby gas drilling field). It was very quiet, deep in the woods, and quite pleasant. Light supper, and then to bed with the a/c running for the first time since Virginia.

Next day we had breakfast, dumped tanks, and were on the road by 9:50 (early for us). Basically it was follow I-81 and try to keep the speed down to a fuel-sipping level (more or less). Ran through some rain in Lynchburg and home at 5:45. It's hot here!