Vermont 2021 {10/23: Bennington Battle Monument, Churches and Covered Bridges, Causeway Park}

We woke up in Bennington on Saturday morning, watched some sports highlights on TV, grabbed Dunkin' donuts for breakfast, and fiddled around at a little park in town while we waited for the McClungs to be ready for the day. We met up with them at the Bennington Battle Monument where we learned about the monument and the battle it was commemorating. The elevator to the observation tower was out of order, so we had to be happy with just looking at the ground-level displays, and we were. Pretty impressive place!

Our next item for the morning was to visit Aldi. Gregg and others have told me about this little grocery chain that is only found in the east, and both Christine and I were excited to check it out in real life. It was what they said, a small, cheap, funny little grocery store. But we had a fun time exploring and buying a few snacks.

We noticed on the map that there were three covered bridges (new to us!) that were right near each other near town, so we made a little loop to see them. We started heading north to Rutland, where we found another park for a quick stop and stretch. Four more covered bridges that we had never seen before were just outside of Rutland, so we made another detour off the highway to visit them. We saw plenty of pretty churches along the way, too. We made one more quick tour through Middlebury to see Middlebury College, where lots of Gregg's friends and coworkers went to school. What a beautiful campus! (I didn't take pics, so you'll have to google it.) The whole drive was spectacular - blue sky, sunny, nearly peak leaves! Gorgeous!

The last stop of our day was Colchester to ride the Island Line Rail trail again, from the other side. It was cool and breezy, but we had a fun ride and even funner time skipping rocks in the lake at our pit stop in the middle. The kids played at Airport Park for a bit while I made sandwiches on the hood of the car for dinner. Then we all headed back to Jay to sleep in our "own beds" again. A fun little getaway within a getaway! And a great tour of the state that we keep saying can't really be real. It's like a postcard practically anywhere you look!

Bennington Battle Monument, which is 306 feet
tall, one foot taller than the Statue of Liberty!

Basically, the Battle of Bennington
was the turning point for the Americans
in the Revolutionary War.

The guide inside the monument told us
that these doors are original (built in 1891),
weigh 700 lbs each, and are hung so expertly
they still swing easily with just one finger
and have never been oiled or fixed or anything!

This giant kettle was confiscated from the British
after the battle. It's a beast!

Looking at a little model of the battle.

The staircase to the top. (Closed to the public,
but still sound and useable by the guide.)

The view from the hill where the monument stands.

Silk Road Bridge.

Paper Mill Bridge.

Cute church at a crazy corner.

Driving through Henry Bridge.

Henry Bridge - we got some good light and a good
angle from a good little pull-out for this shot!

Another beautiful church - all stone - in Rutland.

Same Rutland church, different angle.

Gorham Bridge.

Gorham Bridge again.

Cooley Covered Bridge.

Depot Covered Bridge.

Hammond Bridge.

Hammond Bridge again.

The was the view from the car near Middlebury.
(Again I was trying to snap photos from a moving car and
not getting nearly the magic of the view in real life.)

Seen in Shelburne on the way to Colchester.

Good ol' Lake Champlain!

The clouds were making things rather lovely and dramatic.

I just love the trees that grow out of rocks!

This may just look like a random picture of the bathroom
at Airport Park, but if you look closer, you may just see
a couple monkeys in the trees!

Ditto about the monkeys.

We got back to a freezer full of Ben and Jerry's
ice cream dropped off by the awesome Melissa
here at Jay Peak, just thanking us for coming
and bringing friends with us. She and Steve are
too cool for words!