We stayed in the town of Arlington in Southern Vermont on our last week in the area.  Again we headed south in order to chase the peak colors.

Along the way, we saw more beautiful covered bridges, we never got tired of seeing them.  In total, we saw dozens of covered bridges all over the state.  So charming.

There was a corn maze/garden store near our campground.  It was a little one for kids, but I’d never been in one and wanted to see it, and Hector humored me. 

So we just had a silly time, drinking cider from the farm, walking around the maze and looking at all of the Halloween characters throughout the property. Somehow we escaped without being eaten by the dreaded Pumpkin Rex!

The cloudy days continued, and many of the colors were muted.  After the storm and more windy days, we found a number of areas that were ”post-peak” – with many bare trees and leaves on the ground.  But we continued to chase the colors, heading further south on various drives, on one occasion crossing over into Massachusetts.

We visited another farm, the Merck Forest and Farm Center.   It’s a non-profit organization with  a 62-acre farm a 3,100 acre managed forest.  The center offers demonstrations, apprenticeships, workshops and school programs. 

Visiting the farm is free, and many of the buildings are open to the public.  The farm center has 30 miles of trails and allows primitive camping anywhere except for the trails for $5 a night, and also has some cabins that they rent.  They make organic pure maple syrup and offer other farm fresh products.  While visiting, Angel met a sheep and some piglets.  She was just fascinated.  She was especially interested in the chickens and bunnies, who ran for cover when they saw her.  

We hiked along one of the trails to a beautiful view of the Adirondacks.

After the farm, we stopped at an interesting building with a sign out front saying “The Roy Egg Shop”.  We weren’t quite sure what it was or whether it was open, then the proprietor, Mr. Roy Egg, came out and welcomed us in.  He’s a longtime artist and gallery owner and the building is his farmhouse style gallery.

Mr. Egg had a nearby road named after him – “Egg St.” in honor of his chicken paintings and woodcuts.  He also has a prize-winning painted egg archived in the White House Gallery.

He is a very colorful person and took time to tell us about the building (several hundred years old), his paintings (he’s done landscapes, lots of chickens and some other animals), the Vermont/New York border (it runs through his house!) and other fun stuff.

When we left, I asked him for a recommendation for some good local cheese, and he recommended a farm down the road that makes some award winning cheeses.  Consider Bardwell Farms had an open barn door on the property with a refrigerator that was stocked with cheeses for sale. 

Purchasing the cheese was set up as an honor system asking people who took cheeses to leave cash or a check in a cash box.  There was also cut up cheese in the refrigerator for people to taste.  And they were wonderful cheeses.  We bought three types.  Then we visited a while with the goats at the farm.

And where would all of this farmland be without tractors.  We found an incredible antique tractor collection on a large piece of land in the area with a convenient road that drove alongside the various vehicles.

The southwest area of Vermont around Bennington had more beautiful farms rustic buildings.  One pretty scene after another.

The last place we visited was Okemo, a small ski area.  Hector actually skied there after a business trip in the 80’s.  We had a picnic halfway up the mountain and drove to (almost) the top.  Once again the trees at the top were already bare.

So even though we did not see peak colors in Southern Vermont it was still really beautiful.

And we learned that peak colors are very elusive; you don’t “catch” the peak, the peak catches you.

~ Brenda

Where to next?