Wednesday the 19th part 2

Wednesday, 19-Aug-2009 Part two.

After leaving Ben & Jerry's, we headed up to the nearby Von Trapp Lodge. Having seen "The Sound of Music" only once in my life (sad, I know), I had no idea that the family in the story was actually real! So apparantly, the Von Trapp family fled Austria and eventually made it out to Vermont where they built an amazing family lodge which is now a Hotel.


(Included here is Ryan Arnold, Malia Arnold, and with how Amy pulled my shirt around, my 6-months-pregnant gut!) We had a lot of fun at this lodge. As we went in to have lunch we saw mostly adults around, dressy casual clothing, chatting quietly, and in we bound: four adults and seven kids! Just as we got in it started to rain, and then it started to pour! I couldn't resist. I walked outside and started playing in the rain, encouraging some of the kids to come with me. It was pouring quite hard (it only took a couple seconds to be drenched through). I got some of the kids to come out, but I enjoyed most of it. It was plenty warm and so the rain wasn't in the least bit uncomfortable! I told Bonnie when I came in that my father (hi dad!) would probably be ashamed of me. She responded "Yeah. And your father-in-law would be proud of you! In fact, he would have been out there with you." It was pretty funny. Anyhow, I think we'd have fit in well with the Von Trapp's!

Below is the view from the lodge.


I can only imagine how amazing this looks in the fall!

The next step in our journey took us up near Burlington to the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory.



Shortly after we walked in they announced the next tour was starting. We hadn't seen anything anywhere about what to pay for it, and the tour guide seemed very welcoming and made no mention of tickets, so we figured it was free and joined in. As we got a good way through the tour, however, we realized that it was a paid tour. Oops! So we finished through the tour and then went back and paid afterward. They didn't mind. Here's Amy in part of the tour.



And then pictures outside


And Amy!


What a cutie Amy is! We got her a Teddy Bear "second" (it had embroidery on the foot already with the name "Herma". They must have messed up or something and thus it was on the second's shelf. Even still, it was over $20. Regular one's are in the $50 dollar range. Add clothes and it only goes up from there. That said, they are very well made teddy bears and come with a lifetime guarantee. If anything ever happens to the bear - even if it gets torn to shreds by a vicious dog - you can send any parts that you can find in and they will replace it for you completely free. That frankly is pretty cool. So anyway, Amy loves her Vermont Teddy Bear "Herma".

At this point, it had already been quite a long day. That said, we wanted to make it to lake Champlain. A lot of significant Revolutionary War history happened on that lake. (Someday I'd like to go see Fort Ti (Ticonderoga), but it was an hour south of us PLUS on the other side of the lake, so no go this trip.) We got directions to a good beach area from workers at the Vermont Teddy Bear factory (thank you!) and headed over. Turns out though that the local parking lot was $8/car, and free parking on the street was backed up nearly a mile. We didn't have much time, so we bit the bullet and paid for two cars to go in. There was a nice park there with bathrooms that had shower-ish spray down areas and the works. It was quite nice. We ate dinner at a park bench there, went to the lake to skip some rocks, and then headed over to the nearby beach area. What fun we had! Here are some pictures and video. It's a beautiful lake!

Sam and Noel by our dinner bench:



Bont and Amy:





I thought this was a great action shot of Tyler, Ryan, and Lilianne Arnold:


And a beautiful sunset by the park and the lake:


So we finally washed up, loaded back in the cars, and drove the 3+ hour trip back to Boston. On our way, Bont and I had to pull over because Noel was screaming her poor little head off, so we found a turn out spot and Bonnie nursed. We were whupped, but we were listening to a book on CD which makes it easy for me to stay awake and drive, so we were good.

Whew! What a day!