The five of us had a great day in one of my favorite places, Vermont.
We started off at the granite quarries of Barre, home of Rock of Ages granite and the Hope Cemetery. Then we hit Ben & Jerry’s, taking the tour and then supporting their business through consumption. (It was great, but I’m not much of an ice cream eater. Any able to tell us what the best kind of Ben & Jerry’s is?)
From there we turned south to the Robert Frost Interpretive Trail — a spectacular 1-mile hike with several of his most famous poems posted overlooking the very scenes near his Vermont home that inspired them.
Finally, we took a three-hour hike up Mount Abraham on the Long Trail. And now back to the beautiful cabin on a river where we’re staying.
A couple of our favorite from Frost (along with, of course, “Birches” and “Mending Wall”):
STOPPING BY THE WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Those poems take me back…
Sounds like you’re having fun!
One Fine Whirled after the song One Fine World is a really good flavor.
Banana ice cream, chocolate chunks, and walnuts - Chunky Monkey, the absolute best!
‘Nothing Gold Can Stay’ is my favorite. It was my 8th Grade Graduation theme too - it helped that our favorite book & movie was ‘The Outsiders’!!!
Half-Baked is one of my favorites…
What does it say about a guy that one of his favorite spots is a cemetary? Tell them more about Hope Cemetary.
One of these days you will have to come up to Coles Pond with us and the Coffey’s. We are starting a compound there.
Magic Brownie is my favorite B&J flavor right now…
Thanks for the travel tip, Mike. We’ll have to add that to our list since VT is just a 1/2 hour from our house. The hike sounds wonderful.
B & J…Cherry Garcia’s my favorite.
I agree with Michael Summers — it’s definitely, hands-down, no question Chunky Monkey. One year I even by-passed a birthday cake and just asked for a tub of it with a candle on top. Brilliant! (Phish Food is the runner-up.)
Probably cliche, but I still love The Road Less Traveled by Frost…we sang a musical adaptation of it in highschool choir and I can still hear every note…
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
As for Ben and Jerry’s…for me, it’s Phish Food
What a beautiful day. I would recommend some Aaron Copeland for the soundtrack to your movie.
Makes me remember singing “Frostiana” by Randall Thompson. My favorite of that is “Something Like a Star.” Amazing poem — amazing music.
Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch.
Glad you’re having fun!
I have too many favorite Frost poems to name them… (the best ones, though, are the more obscure).
I did take the Ben and Jerry’s tour a couple of years ago… we had “Oatmeal Cookie Chunk” or something like that.
It was delightful… and full of fibre as well!
The only thing better for that trip would be a late September calendar date. If you haven’t seen the Autumn leaves in New England…..
Thanks for sharing the poems - they’re beautiful. I can’t think of anything I would enjoy more right now than a 1-mile hike along that trail of scenery that inspired those poems. Do you know you are blessed? We’re here in the heat practicing baseball. Yeah yeah, that sounds good to you too. I know.
Vermont is probably my favorite state in the union, bar none, because of what you’ve described. Ben & Jerry’s. When we honeymooned in VT two years ago, we toured the B&J plant and got to taste-test some new flavor that had chocolate ribbon and Kahluah in vanilla ice cream. Our tour was smaller than normal, and they told us we had to finish all the little sample cups before we left. We gorged ourselves.
Steve
I too enjoy Frost the poet more than the frosty ice cream treat, but if you’re going to force me I’ll have a scoop of Cherry Garcia please.
Hey Beaner, stay gold Pony Boy!
Mike:
I’m jealous. Vermont is one of my favorites as well. My brother and I vistited a few years ago and did some hiking. You’ve inspired me to go back. Hope all is well with your family and Highland. Rachel and I miss it.
Klint
Check out Hope Cemetery…
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/VTBARhopecemetery.html
I love Robert Frost. “Stopping by Woods” is one of my favourites. As for Ben & Jerry’s, I discovered Dave Matthews Magic Brownies last summer. Vanilla ice cream with chunks of brownie and raspberry swirls. Mmmmmm.
Phish food has to be the winner. I like the way it just throws down the gauntlet with it’s 800,000 calories per serving mix of everything in the world that is bad for you. It’s a way of saying, “Hey, you’re not eating ice cream for your health anyway, so you might as well go all out…”
Cherry Garcia, no question about it, although it nearly gags me to give my money to an entity that supports ultra liberal causes.
Mike Riley - When did protection of the environment and small to mid sized family farms become ultra liberal causes.
Does that make the National Rifle Association an “ultra Liberal organization” because of their stance on protecting the environment?
That is an awfully broad brush you’re painting with. The lines are becoming more and more blurred.
I love, love, love Cherry Garcia and I love the causes they support….so, I get double pleasure from their ice cream. I have only been in Vermont in the winter with lots of snow…I was in awe. Robert Frost is still moving all of us….that says something about his writing.
Mike, is that “beautiful cabin on the river” by any chance Bumpy’s?
Being the world’s foremost authority on B&J’s I have to recommend the following:
Chocoholic? Chocolate Fudge Brownie (11 out of 10)
Fruity? Cherry Garcia (10 out of 10)
Watching a game? NY Super Fudge Chunk
Best retired flavor? Wavy Gravy (All time greatest flavor)
But being you are on the East Coast go with Pistachio Pistachio a flavor so great they named it twice!
I was in the car one day when “Writer’s Almanac” came on and Garrison Keillor started reading “Stopping by the Woods…” I nearly had an out-of-body experience right there in the McDonald’s drive-thru.
Every American girl who was ten or older by 1982 had “Nothing Gold Can Stay” memorized, thanks to “The Outsiders.” And the song Stevie Wonder wrote for that movie is among his best.
Chunky Monkey!
Any Ben & Jerrys is the best!!!!
Phish Food got me through 3 months of a colicky baby. I’m forever grateful.
Chubby Hubby is really good!
You going to get a chance to see Landon?
Cherry Garcia is my all-time favorite.
Oooops!
Oh, the shame, the shame, the shame. No sweep.
Rangers 5 MY PADRES 3.
That’s over - back to Vermont, one of my very favorite of these 50 United States of America, especially in the Fall and Winter. In spite of my green eyes, have to admit envy green is not very complimentary. LOL
We miss you. Have a wonderful vacation!
LOVE Robert Frost! Especially when set to music.
LOVE cabins in the woods, with rivers nearby! Hiking in the woods is as close to Heaven as I’ve been lately. We’ll have to compare pix of our time in Colo. and yours in VT. I think either place in the 2nd or 3rd week of Sept. would be nice, with those fall colors so glorious. Then we still seem to keep coming back to dear ol Abilene.
Definitely Cherry Garcia or Half Baked…
oops — add
to the above
where did “the above” go?
BTW — in New England there are camps and cottages — no “cabins.”
BIG oops — I found it — I’m blogging on two different days!
Sorry about that!
VT is the prettiest state in the Union. Autumn in Vermont staggers the senses. Favorite places: Weston, Peacham, East Topsham.
Who was 1,000,000?