Vermont Travel Notes

This Monday evening, the Green Mountain Signature Chefs Event will be held at Stowe Mountain Resort to benefit the March of Dimes.

Tickets are $75 per person. There will be a benefit auction for items such as restaurant dinners, lodging stays, chef prepared dinner in your home, cooking lessons in your home, shopping spree for wine and cheese, etc.

Details are available on the Vermont March of Dimes website.

(c) 2007 Jeff Connor Grunberg Haus Inn

I am often asked by visitors what there is to do here in Vermont. The first things that comes to mind are outdoor activities such as hiking, bicycling, canoeing/kayaking, fishing, sailing, skating, swimming, skiing, snowshoeing, dog sled rides, and so on. Vermont is blessed with beautiful scenery and clean air that visitors can enjoy outdoors year around.

There is a great showcase for all these activities at the All Sports, Recreation and Fitness Expo this weekend at the Champlain Valley Expo center near Burlington in the northern part of the state.

The Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Division of State Parks, and the Department of Tourism and Marketing have partnered to put on this event and create a “Vermont Village where visitors can sign up for their hunting license, book campsites at state parks and participate in a 3-D laser shoot. The Expo will feature commercial exhibits, interactive activities, demonstrations, clinics, seminars, sports celebrities, product/service sales."

One hundred exhibitors and 60 demonstrations will cover a wide variety of activities for people of all ages including golf, yoga, rock climbing wall, extreme sports, hockey on a plastic ice surface, children's activities team sports, dog agility trials, nutrition, skiing, U.S.A Luge track, etc. There will almost certainly be several things you will be interested in.

Here is a link to a $2 discount coupon you can print and bring with you.

(c) 2007 Jeff Connor Grunberg Haus Inn

There is always a wide range of things to see and do here in VT . . . but usually not this wide.

I got a chuckle of this and thought you might too. And just to give you an idea of the diversity of things to do in VT, here is a weird coupling: the sensuous and dramatic I Tango show and the Horace Greeley Writers Symposium both of which are this weekend.

The I Tango show is in Burlington and and the Horace Greeley Symposium is in Poultney VT. Greeley has a connection to VT because he was a printer's apprentice in Poultney. He is most often thought of as the man who said "Go west young man" and although he did write that in one of his editorials, he was actually the second newspaper writer to do so. A writer from a Terra Haute IN newspaper actually wrote that line first, about 14 years before Greeley did but it was Greeley with a large New York city readership who popularized the term.

Wikipedia has a brief biography of Greeley.

The Symposium is being held at Green Mountain College in the picturesque village of Poultney VT.

(c) 2007 Jeff Connor Grunberg Haus Inn

There are two events in Stowe this weekend. The Stowe Foliage Art and Craft Festival is a high quality event attended by 185 artists and artisans who were chosen from a very large pool of applicants. These participants are the best in this part of the country and they will be displaying paintings, pottery, blown glass, photography, furniture, clothing, and weavings.

The event is held in giant "Camelot tents" complete with heating, so the event is held rain or shine. It continues this weekend Saturday and Sunday, October 6 and 7 from 10:00 to 5:00. There is a specialty food tent with all fresh food cooked on site. There will be top quality live music and demonstrations of glass blowing, raku pottery, paper embossing, wood turning, wood carving, and intarsia woodwork.

Directions: from Stowe, take Route 108 out of town about four miles to the Topnotch Field on the left.

The Festival is held in conjunction with OctoberFAST, a gathering of German collector cars including Porsche, Mercedes, BMW, VW, and Audi. The car meet is at the same Topnotch field as the Art and Craft Festival.

(c) 2007 [except the photograph] Grunberg Haus

If you go apple picking during your travel to Vermont, keep an eye out for a prize apple like this.

Spending some time outdoors picking apples is rewarding enough but now there is extra incentive with a contest that will reward you with an Apple iPod if you can find one of the winning apples.

Eleven specially marked wooden apples are waiting in participating apple orchards around Vermont. If you find one, just turn it in to the orchard owner, and Small Dog Electronics will send you an iPod. See the VermontVacation.com website for rules.

Small Dog Electronics headquarters and one of their retail stores is a just few miles from our inn. They are Mac specialists who are fairly well known around the country by Mac aficionados.

Participating Orchards:

North
Adams Apple Orchard, Williston
Allenholm Farm, South Hero
Chapin Orchard, Essex Junction
Crow Hill Orchard, Saint Johnsbury
Franklin Orchard, Franklin
Hacketts Orchards South Hero
Halls Orchard, Isle La Motte
Shelburne Orchards, Shelburne
West Swanton, Orchard
Cider Mil, Swanton

Central
Champlain Orchards, Shoreham
Douglas Orchards, Shoreham
Liberty Orchard, Brookfield
Happy Valley Orchard, Middlebury
Mendon Mountain Orchard, Mendon
Stevens Orchard, Orwell

South
Cortland Hill Orchard, Brattleboro
Dwight Miller and Son, E. Dummerston
Green Mountain Orchards, Putney
Harlows Sugar House, Putney
Mad Tom Orchard, East Dorset
Wellwood Orchards Inc, Springfield



A map marked with all the Vermont orchards taking part in the Apple iPod contest. You can see a large version on the VT Dept of Tourism website.

(c) 2007 [except the photograph and map] Jeff Connor Grunberg Haus.

This coming weekend, both Saturday and Sunday, October 6 and 7, "antiquers" and "leaf peepers" will descend on the Champlain Valley Expo Center in Essex Junction near Burlington for the annual Champlain Valley Antiques Festival.

It is the largest antique show in Vermont and one of the largest in New England. There will be about 125 dealers and about 30 room displays.

To get an idea of the scope and quality of this show, you can review many photos from the 2005 show on the New England Antiques Show website.

Admission is $8 but you can get a one dollar discount coupon on the Antiquing Vermont website.


(c) 2007 [except the photograph] Jeff Connor Grunberg Haus