Vermont Travel Notes

STOMP Out Loud, the famous performing percussion group has made Burlington VT its temporary home for a few weeks as it prepares to go on the road for a long tour.

They're creating and rehearsing new routines that you can be the first to see this Tuesday and Wednesday evenings at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts.

Go to that Flynn website for tickets.

Here is a YouTube.com video - there are many more on the site too:



STOMP started as street performers in the UK. You can read a little background on them on Wikipedia.

(c) 2008 Jeff Connor Grunberg Haus Inn

From Sweden, the Dockteater Verkstan Puppet Theater company delights young audiences with its story about monkeys who have all sorts of zany adventures trying to run a circus

I wrote an entry Sept 12 about the amazing puppet shows in the Brattleboro and Bellows Falls area this past week. The festival winds up this weekend with multiple shows Saturday and Sunday. It is about a 2.5 hour drive from us but if I were in southern VT, this is what I would be attending this weekend. See the Puppets in the Green Mountains schedule here.

(c) 2008 Jeff Connor Grunberg Haus Inn

Brewster River photograph from my favorite photoblog: Megapickles . . . see the September 16, 2008 entry.

The Brewster River runs north down from Spruce Peak to the town of Jeffersonville VT where it empties into the Lamoille River.

More Brewster River photos are available here.

There is a widely photographed falls you can find in Brewster River Gorge. Locally, it is sometimes called Jefferson Falls.

If you want to fish the area, stop by an excellent little fly shop called Green Mountain Troutfitters to arrange for a guide, get the current flies, etc.

Be sure to drive Route 108 from Jeffersonville to Stowe or the opposite way from Stowe to Jeffersonville. It goes through an area called Smugglers Notch and it is one of the prettiest drives in Vermont.

(c) 2008 Jeff Connor (except the photo from the Megapickles website

There are a lot of events going on in Vermont this weekend, too much to review here but I've chosen what I think are a good cross section. If you would like a longer list, go to Vermont Vacationwebsite.


Northern Vermont

The Northeast Kingdom Quiltfest 2008 is being held Saturday, September 20, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm at the New port VT Municipal Building, 222 Main St. (map on the website home page). Admission is free. Quilt displays, demonstrations, door prizes, raffle quilt, scavenger hunt. Free admission.

Nearby in St. Johnsbury is the Festival of Traditional Crafts at the Fairbanks Museum, on Saturday, September 20, 2008. Artisans and history experts demonstrate the skills that New Englanders used a few hundred years ago including soap making, log boring, chair caning, basket weaving, boat building, natural fiber dyeing, rope braiding, blacksmithing, wood carving, weather forecasting techniques, grafting apple trees, etc. This is part of The Fairbanks Institute for Traditional Crafts series of events - check the website for future workshops. The festival continues into the night with a 7:00 performance by The Bob Amos Band and guest Drexel Rayford who blend several types of music to create a "Sounds of the Kingdom." Here is a Google Map for the museum.



Boyden Family Farm Harvest Festival, September 20 and 21 in Cambridge VT. Go ahead and bring the kids to the festival to see grape picking, grape crushing and pressing, stomping contest, music, clowns and face painting, old farming demonstrations, apple pressing and cider tasting, wine tastings, live music, cheese and bread tastings, Green River Canoe tours.

Battle of Meach Cove Civil Ware Reenactment both Saturday and Sunday. Free admission to "two days of Civil War battles, cannon fire, demonstrations by the artillery, cavalry & hospital corps, infantry drill and camp life of a soldier from the North and the South. Learn about Vermont’s role in the Civil War, see Union and Confederate troops squaring off against each other using 1860’s tactics and talk with reenactors about the life of a typical soldier." At Meach Cove, just outside Shelburne and about 15 minutes south of Burlington.

While you are in the area, you can pick apples at the Shelburne Orchards


Central Vermont

September 20 and 21, Ludlow VT
Antique tractors, engines, and machinery show with demonstrations of a shingle mill, saw mill, drag saw, threshing machine, wood splitter, cider press, ice cream maker, evening music and dancing. Tractors and parts for
sale.Tractor pulls on Sunday.

Take Bixby Road off Route 103 and follow the signs.

Mushroom hunting Sept 21, 2008 at the Senator Justin Morrill State Historic Site 214 Justin Morrill Highway from 1:00 to 4:00 PM. Mushroom hunting with mycologist Faith Hunt, who shows which can be eaten and which cannot. After the hunt, taste there will be a tasting of cooked wild mushrooms.

Sculptfest 08
on Marble Street in Rutland VT. This is an annual event held for the last nine years, "presents large-scale, outdoor installations. An invited curator selects up to ten artists to respond to the post-industrial landscape surrounding the Carving Studio and Sculpture Center. The Studio works with Gawet Marble and Granite Company to accommodate individual artistic visions. This year’s opening reception will again feature a Fine Art Raffle of donated works by well-known sculptors."

(c) 2008 Jeff Connor Grunberg Haus Inn

Car lovers have two great shows to attend this weekend. Whether you prefer '32 Highboys or Drop Head Coupes, or if you love both types, you will have a great time in northern VT this weekend.

The 40th annual Northeast Street Rod Nationals are being held at the Champlain Valley Expo near Burlington. This is one of the largest hot rod shows in the country and attracts meticulously made custom cars from the eastern half of the US and Canada.

About 45 minutes away in Stowe VT is the annual British Invasion, a British only car show that features a concours competition, driving tours, parade, display contest, costume contest, British music, British beer, and much more. It's actually a British Lifestyle Event celebrating everything British.



(c) 2008 Jeff Connor Grunberg Haus Inn

"ZIPPO. ZILCH. NADA. "

That is the extent of your rights when you step onto an airplane (or "INto" an airplane as George Carlin liked to point out) according to Marc Britton. He should know - he's an attorney who was once General Counsel at Expedia and now runs his own legal advice website called Avvo.

He recently wrote a succinct article on this topic at the Journey etc. website

Airlines cannot discriminate against you by selling your seat to someone better looking or more pleasant. Nor can they punch you if you get on their nerves. But beyond that, the sky is the limit, as pilots like to say.

And who gives them the right to treat you like cattle? You do. When you buy a ticket, you agree to abide by their terms in the Carriage Agreement that they print on their tickets in microscopically small and very light type.

However, they are not heartless bastards. Bastards, yes. But not heartless. Maybe we should qualify that with the word "usually" not heartless. They are a slow, inconsistent, ungainly, and profitless bureaucracy. They are frightening to deal with but you don't have a choice if you need to get somewhere far within a reasonable period of time. And, like a strikingly similar bureaucracy, you do have a vote but the choices are not great and probably don't make a difference in the long run.

I wrote an article last Nov 24 about Rule 240 that gives you a little bit of a fighting chance sometimes. You can learn more about the Rule at the Peter Greenberg travel website..


Air Sickness Bag (and humor) from European flight operator Hapag-Lloyd Express

(c) 2008 except the photo Jeff Connor