Category: Vermont

Twice Upon a Time Antiques – Brattleboro Vermont

After the Sparkle Barn we decided to end our trip to Vermont with one more randomly picked antique store which ended up being Twice Upon a Time Antiques in Brattleborro.

Finding it was easy, finding parking during peak traffic wasn’t so much but we managed to find a little paid public parking lot. I guess this neighborhood was somewhat rougher than my companion anticipated for Vermont so I got reminded to lock the car, something I don’t normally bother with because if anyone wants to steal 40 pounds of plastic bags I keep forgetting to return to the grocery store then so be it. They can have them. Besides this we parked next to either an on duty cop or security guard, I mean yeah he was amongst a gaggle of pot smoking 20-somethings paying no heed but this is Vermont. I don’t know about the legalities, all I know is the vibe – hippies live here.

We walked to the antique store probably more disoriented than the aforementioned youths but that is what several days of driving to absolutely random locations will do to you. On this day I was confusing Brattleborro with Bennington. No matter, a b’s a b, and we’re still in Vermont.

The antique store had a lovely vibe. The woman working here today was joyful and sweet, even singing along to the oldies until she heard me also singing along. Don’t be shy! Everyone should sing more often! And it’s fun when it’s two strangers!

This place was three moderate floors. The front had typical decorative antiques and nostalgic throw backs (like a whole wall of brightly colored Felix the Cat clocks, you know the ones with the swinging tails) and the back had a bunch of really delightful retro clothing. I’ve grown too fat for all of it but I did really enjoy pawing over it and my companion was distracted like a crow with something shiny when he found a massive collection of fancy hats next to a mirror. I chose a few for him to try- how about the Jackie Kennedy pillbox hat, no? Surely these series of Easter Sunday bests would do. The woman working here giggled with us as she walked by, “That one suits you!” It’s important to be silly sometimes. I was just happy the mood of the past few days was finally swinging back to playful.

Upstairs there was mostly charismatic furniture and a few odd paintings, all very hippie for the most part. That’s probably the other reason I loved this place, that is absolutely my style (or rather the first of my styles before ADHD took over.) The basement had the usual basement antiques but hidden among them was THE UGLIEST teapot I have EVER seen with an odd number of cups. It was peak 70’s fashion. Orange and brown floral. This is absolutely where my love of the color orange came from – from 70’s decore that was so heinously ugly I decided to love it as an act of rebellion. It was only $25 and I really wanted this horrendous choice of kitchenware but… what was I going to do with it?? If I had a house with a big kitchen and company to feed tea to that’d be one thing but that just isn’t even remotely my reality. So I left the poor thing there… and it’s probably still there… because who else would buy something that profoundly fugly?!

Back upstairs my companion found a book so specific and local it just made me want to eat Vermont whole for being so goddamn adorable. This shop wasn’t huge or crazy but the hats everywhere gave it a certain charm and the staff were exactly what I’d expect in Vermont, just a few chill women enjoying a beautiful day.

Outside on the streets however things were getting weird. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post to see why!

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The Sparkle Barn – Wallingford Vermont

The shittier life gets and the more apocalyptic the surrounding world becomes the more I desperately need whimsy and the Sparkle barn… well, it was exactly what I needed! This place was so nonsically colorful it just fed my soul.

It had been on my bucket list for a few months but to be honest I had no idea what to expect. It was really just the title that was sparking my infinite curiosity.

We visited the Sparkle Barn on our second day in Vermont. It was our first stop and quite a hike into the middle of nowhere but you know, Vermont’s like that. It’s the state that hides a lot of treasures behind a mischievous smile.

Driving up it didn’t look like too much from the outside although there was a broken down bus in the parking lot with a beach ball in its window painted to look like a giant eyeball. Trippy. I like the fact someone else besides me was personifying cars. By now the issues at home that had been dogging my companion the day before had come to a head and he was now having a bit of a meltdown yelling into the phone. I gave him some space by wandering into the yard of this odd place.

There seemed to be a garden of sorts out front but it was unlike any garden I’d ever seen. For one the flowers were all made of brightly colored metal. They reminded me a bit of Alice in Wonderland. Beyond them was a bench in the shape of a unicorn you could sit on and so many other sparkly metal decorations both dancing in the wind and tacked up to the barn’s wall. I was fucking loving this and I hadn’t even stepped inside yet!

Inside was even sparklier. The entryway was surrounded by stained glass windows and the inside was a darling little gift shop with fancy notebooks and diaries and whatnot, a light smattering of nerdcore (like some Edgar Allen Poe dolls!) It was all very cute. Unfortunately, my companion was still coming down from his traumatic phone call and was more than a little distracted. That is until we walked into a room that seemed at complete odds with the over the top color of the rest of this place. It was a room with a wall mural of ravens. There was a big Gothic chair and candles and witchy items for sale in case anyone needed a bundle of sage or a piece of Edgar Allen Poe or Edward Gorey memorabilia. Honestly, I haven’t done enough with those two as both had lived in New England at some point in their lives. And I adore both of their work.

However the biggest treat of this place was upstairs which was so immersing that it shocked both of us into experiencing the moment. The second floor of the barn was an “interactive art display.” And when I tell you EVERY last inch of wall, ceiling, and floor of this place was covered in brightly colored fabrics and enormous fake flowers I mean it. It was literally like walking into Alice in Wonderland. The photos just don’t do it justice. Vines and flowers dangled from above and seemed to sprout from the plush super thick shag carpet as well. Child size chairs and tables in the form of flower petals and toadstools sat in two rows so you could sit or watch the children scamper through this felted garden. This tickled every cell of my inner child. SO MUCH WHIMSY. I was so stupidly happy in this moment. This was a goddamn treasure for all ages. I wished more places like this existed. We both left in a much better mood than we arrived in.

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Goodman’s American Pie – Hangry Chaos in Ludlow Vermont

There’s been an absolute avalanche of chaos and confusion going on in my corner of the world so it took me a whole week to get back to writing part two of my Vermont adventures but here we are!

We had already had an awesome day of a completely overwhelming amount of antiquing. We were lacking in sleep, my companion had come down with something, and on top of that a number of negative complications from personal life were butting in our free wheeling. Also we were both getting hangry- that lovely point when you’re so hungry you’re either yelling or crying for no reason. And this was the point in our travels that everything also started to go wrong.

You see Vermont is very mountainous and rural and cell phone coverage and internet connection here can be… unreliable at best. So there we were, hungry, in the middle of the goddamn mountains in an unfamiliar town having no idea where to find some good grub.

I sucked in a good breath, tested my own patience, and said, “Well… we could just follow the signs to Rutland which I know is a city and would have both coverage and a place to eat…” We agreed this was best and set off back the roads from whence we came, over some bear-sized potholes, until we arrived in Ludlow. You might recognize Ludlow is not Rutland but it’s Ludlow where our internet started working again and it seemed decently populated, enough so to have a place to eat. So instead of continuing another half an hour or so we decided to pull over in a gas station and see what there was for good grub rather than risk losing connection again.

I nearly lost an axel pulling into this gas station over a pothole that may as well been a crater. CLUNK CLUNK!

Cars in this town were 100% unforgiving of anyone who didn’t know where they were going or going slower than 10-15 miles over the speed limit so I also had another car close to rear ending me as I drove over the aforementioned crater. My companion is in charge of picking places to eat so he found a place and we headed off. It wasn’t far away but it was unbeknownst to us in a ski lodge that was filled to capacity and despite being in the middle of the woods was swarmed with people. Restaurant parking was full and I wasn’t about to figure out how much ski lodge parking cost so annoyed we turned around and made our way back to town but before getting there I had some jack ass laying on his horn telling me I needed to turn and turn NOW. Only one problem with that, another giant jack ass pick up had pulled up beside me and was halfway into the intersection completely blocking my view. So I was patiently waiting rather than playing Russian roulette with oncoming traffic in a goddamn Prius. Mind you the Prius gets honked at A LOT, almost always from pick up trucks who think they’re God’s gift to the roads. I’m used to it but on this day that was the straw that broke the camel’s back and I just started screaming back at the fucker and his privileged ski bunny ass.

We found a taco place down the road and turned out it but it was bizarrely a pick-up only restaurant. A pizza parlor was next door but there was no parking and by now we were both intensely agitated and yelling.

“That’s not a parking space!”

“I KNOW! I’M TRYING TO TURN AROUND!”

The pizza place was Goodman’s American Pie. We weren’t looking for pizza but we needed something so I parked nearby and we walked back not realizing this place was also an arcade filled with unsupervised children, some of them joyfully screaming. We may have been holding back visible twitches at this point as we ordered and looked to see if there was anywhere to sit.

The only table they had left open was a tiny bar stool table next to the pool table where three children were playing something, though I can’t say it was entirely pool, more a chaotic mix of pool, bowling, fishing, and water polo, you know all the big ones. Though our table was above their little heads they still managed to repeatedly whack it with the ass end of the pool sticks.

My companion took this moment to go to the bathroom, probably in part to supress any growing homicidal thoughts regarding the situation.

Meanwhile another overly privileged asshole could be heard making an order on the phone as the poor kid taking the call asked his boss, “Uhhh… can we make 45 pizzas in an hour?” One employee, 45 pizzas, and this SOB wanted the whole order in an hour.

I wad SHOCKED to see my own pizza served to our table only moments later. That is the quickest service I have EVER gotten in any restaurant. It seemed to defy physics. The brick oven pizza was basically lava but I was halfway done horking down my first slice before my companion returned.

We ate in silence and with the ferver of rabbid raccoons before stopping at the end and stating, “I needed that.” YEAH, we both did. And that’s how we managed to stop yelling at each other for no reason and retired for the day. And for all it’s worth although neither one of us ever want to return to Ludlow that was still a damn good pizza.

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Stone House Antiques – Chester Vermont

After having earlier that day hit Vermont Antique Mall and already being slightly overwelmed at the size and amount of antiques we started to go for broke. It was my companion’s vacation after all. So we looked up another place somewhat in the area and came up with the Stone House Antiques.

This is where things started to go off the rails as the GPS brought us to the middle of nowhere, over every pothole in the state, and we had to pull over and park in a nice church yard to regain our bearings and beg the phone for directions. Luckily at this point the phones still worked and we made our way easily to the appropriate parking lot.

Once again we were gifted a large market to explore with fancy bougie antiques on the first floor and the devil’s nostalgia pit in the basement. Upstairs the only thing that caught my attention was this weird blue glass baby bottle which for some unknown reason had two baby faces on the neck like a reversible doll. From afar it was pretty but up close it had old timey mental institution vibes. Just whhhy?

The basement proved even more fun. My companion was horrified by a cherub box which to be fair Doctor Who does imply cherubs are just baby Weeping Angels… I on the other hand was stopped in my tracks by a bowl that for no reason I could see had a ceramic clown head with a gaping mouth affixed to it. What is that even for?! Also pleeeease stop buying small children clowns. They’re not fun, they’re deeply traumatizing!

By now I’d discovered the “portrait” button on my cell phone’s camera which makes anything in the center of the photo crystal clear and anything beyond it whispy, dream-like, and out of focus. Would you believe this makes all the haunted dolls, possessed knickknacks, and suggestive clowns I find EVEN CREEPIER? I know, it’s a fact that charmed me so much I almost wish people still bought calendars… or conversation pieces to hang on their wall.

We were well satisfied picking through this place but by now we were a bit punch drunk on antiquing so we thought we’d find food… and that’s where everything started to go topside but that is a story for tomorrow.

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Vermont Antique Mall – Quechee Vermont

I realize I have not given much love to Vermont on this blog, and it’s not that I don’t adore Vermont (it’s actually my favorite of the New England states, shhhh) it’s just I rarely have the spoons to drive many hours into the mountains to somewhere that may or may not be open during a random off season day. But this time I had company so it at least was a little more exciting, perhaps too exciting at times as kidnapping my companion for a few days to play in Vermont with me started with a midnight drive around and around Rhode Island searching for ANY exit that wasn’t closed for construction! It was like living through the lyrics if Hotel California – you can check in but you can never leave…

But we did make it north, had a nice little sleep and immediately got up to go give Vermont a friendly poke. We’d learned that generally speaking the antique stores with the blandest names were often the largest and there’s nothing lacking more imagination than the Vermont Antique Mall. It just screams antiques. In Vermont. Come get em’.

Luckily this observation turned out to be true for this store. It was large! And surrounded by other quaint little Vermonty stores in the same Plaza, er village. There was a liquor store for the adults, an ice cream parlor for the kids, and randomly an alpaca fiber store with real live alpacas outside to greet guests. Wasn’t expecting that but it does scream Vermont doesn’t it? Random alpacas and artesional sweaters.

But onto the antique store! It was also joyfully very eccentric in that Vermont sort of way as scattered between many of the antiques there was also a plentiful variety of homemade folk art of all ages, subject matter, and level of creepiness. You know like the sweet idyllic scene painted onto an enormous dried mushroom or conversely the equally enormous decapitated claw of a lobster dressed up to look like a pirate!

Did I forget to mention the taxidermy? There were so many bears! A number of impressive mounts and then a few that made you wonder if it was the taxidermist’s first day or if they should be looking for a day job. The mange-addled bear and the coyote with a pained and somehow constipated grin came to mind.

All this was cuddled up next to artifacts and art from I think every indigenous tribe in the US, not just the local ones, and because we love drama there was also a flint pistol and lots of Indian Wars-looking weaponry not far away.

This place had a little of everything and I do mean everything. We even found a battle nun figurine. I know you have questions but I don’t have any answers.

There was also a jar of dog tags, not military ones, the canine variety… perhaps a morbid memorial to dogs long since passed? We may never know. Or who would buy that?? Not to be outdone in the creepy department there was also a marionette horse that I would have brought home to make a still animation horror movie if only I had a studio or the space. The thing was absolute nightmare fuel, a horror of horrors.

But there was a lot of cutesy stuff too including someone’s entire collection of mice figurines and salt and pepper shakers. This is not to mention what hilariously looked like a progressively leaning take on Dick and Jane but with Jane replaced by Joe. Dick and Joe, all kittied up in fancy garb going for a little dance around the yard. It most certainly was not intended for this but you know… modern eyes see modern things….

All and all this place was a lot of fun. Probably would have been even more fun in summer when the ice cream parlor next door is open…

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Phineas Gage Memorial – Cavendish Vermont

Vermont in particular seems to have a long and bizarre history when it comes to interesting ordinary individuals. One of those people I just learned was Phineas Gage. If you don’t know who Phineas Gage is you’re not alone. Mostly it’s people in the psychiatric and medical professions that know his name. He was just a normal railway worker living his life when an accident launched him into the pages of history.

It happened in 1848 when he was working on the rails south of the village of Cavendish Vermont. The railways went directly through mountainous areas which meant that workers had to blast their way through in order to put the rails down. This was dangerous work that involved boring a hole in the rock, filling it with explosives, and packing sand on top with an iron rod (called a tamping iron) before lighting a fuse. Phineas was in the process of doing this when his attention was distracted and when he turned his head to speak the tamping iron struck the rock, caused an unexpected spark, and before he had any time to react he had the 13 pound 3 foot rod shot through his head which landed 85 feet away. This would have been the end for most workers but not Gage who convulsed a few times before getting up and staying conscious well past getting to the hospital. Insanely stoic this guy claimed he wasn’t hurt much and should be back to work in a few days. Granted going to the doctors in the 1800’s wasn’t as sterile or educated as it is today. Gage’s recovery was up and down and at one point included the draining of a fungal abscess on his remaining brain issue which may have caused further damage.

Today I visited the spot of the memorial plaque dedicated to this very unlikely survivor. It sits in the Cavendish common which isn’t the site of the accident but is nearby. I parked at the Municipal building which is just behind the monument that is welded to a rock. I’m afraid my photo isn’t fantastic but it shows in brief detail the life of a man that is more of a curiosity now than he was in his own life (and he was very well known then for it.)

If you’re wondering what happened to Gage after his recovery well… that’s where the story gets quite muddy. What is known is that Gage survived his injury and that for what appears a short time afterward he showed symptoms not uncommon among brain-injured patients but remarkably despite his story being repeatedly rewritten for political reasons he seems to have gone on to live a pretty normal life… His intelligence was said to be unaffected, his memory returned, and he even held down numerous jobs before seizures prevented him from keeping them. We don’t know why he died or if his injury had any real lasting effects on his personality because there seems to be a lot of conflicting information.

Other common myths around this one remarkable individual is that his injury gave inspiration for the invention of lobotomies. There’s no written evidence of this but I have to wonder why it’s been linked in the first place. As I read up on this to create this blog entry I was filled with far more questions than answers. Did he have any serious personalty changes after the accident and if so did they get better over time? Maybe the lesson in his story isn’t whether or not brain damage can make someone a different person but to what extent one can expect to recover from such a thing. Maybe this is really about the remarkable plasticity of the brain.

This photo of the man was discovered in 2009. In it he sits with his tamping iron which toured with him throughout New England in the two years after the accident. It’s unsettling to say the least.

After leaving the monument I asked the GPS where to go and by happenstance it dragged me onto a narrow dirt road where the same rail line ran through the woods. It was a strange moment to realize this. All and all today’s visit to the Phineas Gage memorial and the Fort at Number 4 satiated my desire for history. Until next time…

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Dummerston Apple Pie Fair – Vermont

Today I was supposed to go out to lunch with a friend and meet a different friend at the Apple Pie Fair in Dummerston Vermont, however things didn’t go as planned. My lunch friend got sick and couldn’t go and my apple pie buddy ended up double booked. None-the-less I decided I needed to get out anyway so I asked my mom if she wanted a day out and off we went!

I’d never heard of the Dummerston Apple Pie Fair until I was invited. From what I could gather it was some event held by the local church there… looked quaint and adorable so I figured why not? New England is THE best place to get Autumn apples, cider, apple cider doughnuts, and apple pie… I was going on an empty stomach for a reason!

Yesterday I spent the day helping my mother sell soap at a local craft fair and it must have drained my energy more than I thought because today I could NOT get going! So it was 2:30 before we go there… The listing online said it ended at 4:20PM, which is obviously a joke for the herbally inclined… so I thought maybe it ended at 5? I was hoping anyway. I found parking in a field down the street. There was no charge. We walked past a big house that was taking the opportunity to host a multi-family yard sale since so many pedestrians were walking by… The people there were super sweet and talkative! We moseyed on towards the church. SO MANY PIES – sold whole in front of the church or by slice down aside the church. There was also apple cider and apple cider doughnuts. I grabbed a doughnut to snack on as I walked. Apple cider doughnuts are the best doughnuts you can get, absolutely delicious, and perfect to nibble on as you walk across the street to a craft fair in another church. Sadly we got there just as everyone was packing up. Guess it ended at 3. SO MANY ADORABLE VERMONT CRAFTY THINGS! Wish I got there sooner! There was the usual knitting, crochet, quilting, home-made ties, and then just an assortment of odd things… like these adorable troll like creature sculpted by a pair who call themselves The Widow and the Spinster (nancyb63@svcable.net and bunny@svcable.net). If I’m honest I probably would have taken one home if I had anywhere to put it. My life isn’t that… organized… yet. Across the way Backwoods Vermont had its own assortment of woodland creatures – another collection of trolls, this time in magnet form, caught by eye but they also had felted creations and water color paintings. Downstairs I found someone selling wooden birds who I did not get the card for (so sorry!) and a woman selling goat’s milk soap – Four Kyds Farm – who talked to my soaping mother kindly about how farmer’s markets were really a waste for soapers to go to for the most part (and having attended too many myself I have to agree…) Craft fairs were her thing. Thanks for the tip!

Before we left I was able to buy a gallon of the SWEETEST apple cider I have ever tasted and a pie for later just as they were selling out and it was starting to rain. Perfect timing!

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Tiny House Fest – Brattleborro Vermont – 2018

Recently I decided I should start going to more extroverted places on the weekend, maybe quirky little mom and pop shops, museums, or festivals, leaving my more isolated hikes into the woods or cemeteries for weekdays. There’s always more things to share about New England after all! Every time I feel like I have scraped the bottom of the barrel I always find way more! And so it was that a few days ago I got a fantastic lead – the Tiny House Fest in Brattleborro Vermont, an annual event right dead in the center of this adorable little Vermont town filled with vendors, educational lectures, and thirty tiny houses from all over the country. You could visit the vendors and walk for free, pay $15 to go on a self guided tour of the tiny houses, or pay $25 and have access to all that plus the lectures going on all day in three separate areas. Since this is a subject of great interest to me I splurged on educating myself. $25 and some gas for Daisy, off we go!

My mother decided that morning she wanted to go with me, which is fine, I did ask if she wanted to accompany me as she loves the tiny houses too. It was supposed to have intermittent thunderstorms and downpours all day, which I think kept the faint of heart away. Not me! I struggled to find parking because I am not familiar with Brattleborro and ended up going into town around noon when most of the festival goers were also seeking parking. So I drove up and down main street, in my heavily Sharpied car, probably about five times before I figured out what I was doing and found a suitable parking space. It’s Vermont. My crazy car and neon orange hair barely lift an eye brow here (which is probably why I adore the area so much…) Of course the second I pull in it starts to POUR. I mean hurricane level rain, washing people down the hills… SIGH. I got out, pulled up my hoodie, handed my mother the umbrella, and tried to pay for my space. The machine had other ideas and would not accept my card, or my mother’s. I had to go back to the car, drenched, and rustle around for change. Thank God it was cheap. Thirty cents an hour. Now that’s a price I didn’t mind paying!

Off I went. We first toured all the tiny houses and it was an impressive assortment I must say. Some were just shells, some were completely tricked out, some were built onto trailers, some were in buses and vans, and some were big enough to feel like actual normal houses. The innovation was wonderful! People formed polite ques outside of each and poked in with the same burning curiosity I had. Often the makers of these homes stood somewhere along the way and spoke to people who may have had questions. Several of them I was really impressed with.

From here I attended a few lectures. I learned about a crazy variety of things: the many uses of pee, how to garden under solar panels so that arable land isn’t wasted, how to bring a town back to life with “pop up” stores carried in vans, much about community organization, much about teaching others, as well as how people can live in a bus or a van, and an ungodly amount of information on the construction of a gypsy wagon styled travel home that had my eyes glassed over for the entire half an hour.

The whole venue was quite inspiring – so many people with so many innovative ideas! All ages, classes, backgrounds… people with dogs, people carrying guitars. It was so very Vermont… I had a wonderful time! And I took a lot of photos but there were a lot of people sooo… I’m not sure if any show how impressive it all really was!


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