New England and Canada Adventure - Part I

Ok, here is the long overdue report on our vacation. We did a lot of driving. First we went north through NYC and all the bad traffic, even on a Saturday. We stopped in New Haven, Connecticut for some pizza at a Pepe's, a famous east coast spot that's been around forever. Everyone we encountered in Connecticut was extremely friendly. The next day we attended church at a really interesting and culturally diverse ward in western Mass., which surprised us considering it was not exactly a booming metropolis. After church we continued north and visited Joseph Smith's birthplace in Sharon, VT. It is a pretty site and very peaceful. The most intriguing thing was a family tree they had posted. This one man, Henry Howland, who came over on the Mayflower had three sons. His posterity through his sons includes Winston Churchill, Joseph Smith, Emma Hale, FDR, the Bushes, Nixon, and Gerald Ford! Talk about good genes. He was probably just some guy that considered himself average. If anyone is interested, I can email you the family chart.

We spent the next couple of nights camping outside of Stowe, Vt. It was so refreshing to see some mountains. They aren't as spectacular as Colorado mountains, but they are mountains. We went on a great hike to the top of Mt. Mansfield, the highest peak in Vermont. Up until then we thought all east coast hikes were pretty lame, but this hike was challenging and had a great rewarding view at the top. It was a total stair master routine all the way up, but with really high steps. At the top it was cold and had been foggy most of the morning, but it was fairly clear when we got there. We could see across Lake Champlain into New York and north into Canada. Supposedly on a clear day you can see New Hampshire also.

Mount Mansfield, Vermont. Lake Champlain is in the background.

Of course we couldn't go to Vermont without visiting my good friends Ben and Jerry, so we rewarded ourselves for our good hike by visiting their original factory. The tour isn't much, but they rewarded us with free ice cream at the end. Everyone has got to try their new Cinnabon flavor. It's amazing.

Our first weekday of vacation was filled up with a great hike, lunch, a nap, ice cream, miniature golf (I won a free round with an impossible hole in one) and a movie. It's amazing how much playing you can do when you don't have to work! Next up was Quebec, then Maine, but this blog will have to be done in multiple installments.