Nov 6

Nov 6 Coast to Coast Road Trip - Chicago to Maine

The second leg of our journey started with a very long day on the car… 7.5 hours from Chicago to Endeavor, PA.

Why Endeavor, PA? Other than it’s fabulous name, it’s the home of Mark’s cousin. We had never been for a visit so it was a must on our way to the East Coast.

They really laid out the red carpet for us. How’s this for a perfect morning? Coffee, bagels and kayaks.

Pre-trip photo, just in case we were lost to the raging Allegheny River.

After a fantastic visit in PA, we set off for Shelburne, VT. Top tip, sometimes Google Maps will actually drive you into a lake.

Fortunately, there was a ferry waiting to take us across Lake Champlain. The gentleman at the ferry toll booth said he gets at least a dozen people a day who didn’t know there was a ferry crossing on their route.

We were lucky to have perfect weather that day and it was an unexpected treat to enter Vermont by boat. After disembarking, we were a short drive from Shelburne, just south of Burlington. It’s a sweet little town with a nice farmer’s market and a great wine shop.

I’m a total sucker for historic farms and Shelburne Farms is one of the best. Originally built by the Webb-Vanderbilt family as a model farm, it now operates as an educational non-profit with farm animals, a working dairy, vegetable gardens and a farm store.

Just down the street is the Shelburne Museum. It’s a collection of historic buildings, moved from all over Vermont, which house various collections of fine art, folk art and other historical objects. Again, I love anything old-y time-y, so we’re there for quite a while. I might do a little sub-blog about the exhibits, but the taxidermy and the Andrew Wyeth were stand outs.

The following week was Mark’s birthday, so of course, I dragged him to the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, VT to celebrate. I was hoping the Sound of Music would be playing on a loop around the hotel, but it does not. Too bad.

They offer a variety of “experiences” highlighting the farm, the Von Trapp family history and their various side operations. We did a brewery tour; they actually make some pretty nice beer and got up close and personal with some Highland cattle.

We spent a total of about 3 weeks in Vermont, mostly looking for houses and checking out communities that might become our new home. After bouncing around the state and looking at whatever our realtor could show us, it became clear that this was not the right time to buy. Prices were too high and the inventory too low. So what else can you do?

I guess just eat a maple creemee (that’s Vermonter for maple soft-serve ice cream). In fact, the food producer scene in Vermont is pretty great. If you ever have a chance to try Cabot Farms Sharp Cheddar Popcorn, do not hesitate.

We visited quite a few more interesting places in Vermont, saw a lot of covered bridges, stayed at some interesting Airbnb’s, and ate a lot of cheese. I would love to live in Vermont, but we’ll have to wait for the housing prices to come down. I guess my sheep will have to wait!

After kind of giving up on the house hunt, we headed to Maine for a mini-break. A last minute booking landed us in Boothbay Harbor, right on the water down the street from the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.

Again, we had gorgeous weather. The gardens were really busy, but it’s large and there a lots of hiking trails to views of the bay. Later that day, we had a classic fried-sea-food-on-the-harbor dinner with local beers. Mark elected to skip the $35 lobster roll on our way out of town, but I think we had a quintessential Maine weekend.