Fall in New England

As I have mentioned before in this space I am incredibly smitten with my husband.
Even after 25 years I still like him.  Oh sure he drives me bat shit crazy.
And no one can make me madder but I'm crazy about him.

The two men I would leave him for are Ben and Jerry.
Thought I was going to say Gerard Butler didn't you?
Aah, Gerry is  just a fun weekend.
Ben & Jerry have been in my life so long now I'd have to go with them.
Yet I haven't had B & J ice cream in over a year.  Sad isn't it?
It sucks that it is so bad for me when I love it so.

I LOVE ice cream and I love their ice cream.
Yes, even after the big bad corporation bought them.
I got to visit their corner of the world and their store/factory a few years ago.

There was a section in the Washington Post travel section many years ago that outlined the reporters travels and stops from D.C. to Vermont. 
We read this article and thought it sounded like great fun. 
We took some vacation time in the fall and traced this trip the reporter took.
We stopped at the same stops and some of our own along the way.

We rented a cabin on a lake (that wasn't in the article) and we rented a little boat. 
Rick fished and I drank wine for a few days.  It was fall in Vermont.
It just doesn't get much better than that.
Fall leaves, the smell of the air, the maple syrup and pancakes and Ben and Jerry's.

One day at the cabin I made some hard boiled eggs.
I put them in the water and turned on the stove.
Rick came in from fishing and said that I really ought to join him because it was just so magnificent outside.
The day had started out being cloudy and damp so I was inside reading and relaxing.
The sun was coming out now he said so I grabbed my sweatshirt and out the door I went.

We were trolling around the lake for over an hour and were approaching our cabin when I saw the man we rented from showing the cabin next door. For some reason that sight reminded me that I left the eggs on the stove. I jumped out of the boat running up to the cabin screaming to Rick to help me like I was on fire.
At that very moment the smoke alarm went off.
Poor guy had no idea what in the hell I was talking about.

I get to the kitchen and there is a little bit of smoke and it smelled oh so foul.
The pan was ruined, black and empty.  Oops! no eggs. 
The eggs had exploded and were all over the walls and ceiling.
Oh Rick was not happy with me. You see I have done this before.
Not to the point that they exploded but I have made them and walked away and started something and just plain forgot them.

I just knew as we were cleaning up that the damn owner would be stopping by.
Sure enough I was right. The smoke alarm is going off - of course he would be alarmed. 
That smell stayed with us for a few days unfortunately.
For some reason the owner was so nice and understanding about it. Blew us away.
Of course we cleaned it up. I even went to town and bought another pan for him.
And lots of candles to burn to rid the house of the smell of these damn eggs.
By the time we left it was gone. Thank goodness!

We continued our tour of Vermont by going to Ben and Jerry's on a dark and rainy day.
We had a ball there. The age group was 35 - 85. No kids at all but it was the middle of the week. Free samples for all. I was in my own personal nirvana.
Happiest place on earth - screw Disney!

My favorite discovery while there was the ice cream koozie in the gift shop.
You know like the ones for beer and pop.


The side of the B & J's ice cream pint states it is for 4 people.
C'mon 4 people?  4 very very small people perhaps?
I get 2 people, but 4?
I am going to confess I can eat a full pint of that stuff while watching TV without a problem.
It actually makes me scream that it says for 4 people.
I get 1 person and 2 sittings but 4 people?
Who the shit you kidding?

To my delight I saw koozies for your pint of ice cream.
That tells me that others eat this too by themselves if they are using a koozies.
You aren't going to share once you've been eating straight out of the pint.
You don't normally share your beverage if it's in a koozie.
Koozies are for 1.
So take that B & J and the food police!
If you are selling a koozie for your product it is not for 4 people!

The trip that we were tracing also had us going to the state capital and a culinary school
The school ran a restaurant and bar. It was great fun.
We thought we'd just have a few drinks at the bar and then have dinner in the restaurant.
But the bartender kept having us try appetizers and asking for our honest opinions.
What fun we had. We drank and had some great appetizers and then met the chefs making them. They came out and asked for input from all of us at the bar sharing these great snacks.
We were so full we never went to the restaurant. And they didn't want a cent for any of this. Needless to say their tips were huge.

It was a great week of a fall vacation in New England.
I would love to go back for another only this time Maine.

Maine was a huge surprise to me when I went for work related events.
I fell in love with Maine and wanted to see more.

I have found that places I have wanted to go have always disappointed me.
(LA and San Francisco were huge disappointments for me)
The places I never gave much thought to have always been such a pleasure.
I truly fell in love with Maine as did Rick.  We both went for work reasons, separately of course, but would call one another raving about what we were seeing.

So maybe next fall I can tell you about my New England trip to Maine.
No Ben and Jerry's but there are blogger friends and water and small mountains.
What more do you need?