Brattleboro, Vermont 14-20 Aug 2014

 Vermont was our northernmost stop for 2014.  It is a beautiful state with many lovely, forested lanes,

covered bridges, 

 and lovely, clear, rocky streams.

Ted, the plant pathologist, couldn't resist this photo.  This is chicken-of-the-woods.  It was a summer food staple of early settlers.  Harvested at this stage and sautéed, it is said to taste like a cross between crab and lobster.

 Not far from the campground, that we called home for the week, was Plymouth Notch.  Calvin Coolidge, thirtieth president of the United States, was born in the small house attached to the back of  this store.

 Coolidge succeeded to the presidency upon the death of Warren Harding.  He was sworn into office in his parent's home down the street by his father, who was a Justice of the Peace.  Someone asked him what gave him the right to administer the oath of office.  He said no one told him he couldn't.  During his time in office, this hall, above the store, served as his office during his summer vacations to escape the heat and pestilence of Washington D.C.

 In addition to the strong maple syrup industry, Vermont is also a strong dairy state.  We found one of the best goat cheeses we've ever eaten there along with a very nice blueberry Windsordale. 

 If you ever come to Brattleboro, bring your appetite.  It's an excellent foodie town.  One of the places we patronized was the Top of the Hill Grill seen here.  This well patronized place had, of all things, excellent jambalaya along with several other southern influenced offerings.

 Not much further up the road was The Marina.  It turned out to be, one of our favorite places of the trip.  They served an excellent crab and lobster pastry, which we shared.  We're getting hungry just thinking about it.

 This was one of two whimsical floating sculpture in the slough just off The Marina's patio.  

The Hudson Valley 12 August 2014

We had visited the Hudson Valley in 2009, and had hit a few of the highlights in a blog entry.  Still, we missed so many things we wanted to see.  We traveled across the Mid-Hudson bridge toward Hyde Park to get to some of them.

We had previously been here to visit the FDR residence, but had come too late to get into the Vanderbilt estate.  The first thing you come to when you enter the estate is the visitor center, formerly the bachelor quarters.  If you had been a single male, and had visited this estate during its heyday, you would not have been allowed to stay the night at the main house. Instead, you would have been quartered here.  Not to worry, though, you would have had all the amenities, including servants, and a kitchen staff, to satisfy your midnight cravings. We have a feeling that appearances were more important that what really went on here.  

If you were a married or a single woman, you got to stay in the, far more imposing main mansion.  Power for this mansion was from a private hydroelectric dam across a nearby creek.

The main entry was appointed with very expensive furniture.

If you were a married man, this might have been where you stayed.  Remember, this was the Victorian Era, and men and women stayed in separate areas to preserve the appearance of "decency".  Sure glad that we live now!

Here is the back entrance to Vanderbilt's "humble country estate".  At 55.000 square feet, it was the smallest of the Vanderbilt estates, but remember, it was only their country house.  Not far away, there was a railroad terminal so the Vanderbilts could ride their own train back to their New York estate.

Here is the view from the back entrance.  Not bad, huh?

Further down the Hudson River is the United States Military Academy, West Point.  This is the superintendent's quarters.  In this photo, some of the incoming class.  The day before they had a fifteen mile hike with sixty pound packs files.

A statue of George Washington rides before the Cadet Mess.  Legend has it that Cadet Dwight Eisenhower was once punished by having to stand at attention behind the statue until Washington turned to dismiss him.  It seems he was quite the rebel.  That doesn't quite fit our present-day image of the former President.

There are services in all major religions.  This is the Catholic chapel.  In "militarese", there are no churches, synagogues, mosques; all are chapels.  There are also imposing Protestant and Jewish chapels.

These cannons, and many more, around the campus were captured by the U.S. Army in one war or another.

To the right is the point at which a chain was strung across the Hudson River to keep the British from sailing upstream during the Revolutionary War.  It was never breached despite Benedict Arnold's claim that a "well weighted ship" could break it.  

One of the things we always enjoy is finding fun little, local places to eat.  Alex's restaurant in Poughkeepsie was one of them.  Should you go there, be sure to have a chocolate shake.