First I must say that of all the New England states Vermont is my favorite. Every time I visit I am stunned by how gorgeous it is and how many delightfully weird people live there. On this particular excursion I drove 5.5 hours from Rhode Island to see the irreverent comedy stylings of Lucy Darling. The show was well worth the drive. That night I slept under a tin roof while it rained and slept like a goddamn baby! Surrounded by mountains, forests, and farmland I didn’t want to leave but unfortunately we all have lives to get back to. That didn’t however mean we couldn’t make time for one little stop to poke around…. which ended up being the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream factory.
It was easy to find, using a highway “that closes in winter because there’s nowhere to put the snow.” The parking lot was… a weird winding Byzantine maze that made very little sense but right next to it was the infamous ice cream flavor graveyard.
I’ve seen photos before but for some reason I didn’t expect them to be real slate gravestones! They were all fenced in like a tiny family cemetery you’d find at the sight of an old farmhouse. But they were colorful and each had a pithy rhyme about their demise. It was so quintessentially Vermont for me, just leaning into the weird and whimsical. And there were people reading them all like we were. A fun moment for sure. Although many of these flavors sounded fantastic so I don’t know why they’ve been relegated to the flavor cemetery. Others…. well, let’s just say as much as I love sweet potato pie I’m not convinced that would have been a hit ice cream flavor.
We walked past a little playground towards the factory where there was a place to create tye dye T-shirts and to buy yourself an ice cream cone. Also a ticket booth for factory tours which on this day was only $6 a person! We would have done that if we weren’t on a time crunch. Instead we poked around the gift shop, grabbing a VW Bus shaped pin and leafing through the pages of two tell all exposes about fighting for the soul of the company. Ben and Jerry’s for a long time was a really good company to work for. They gave stocks to the people sewing their T-shirts and stood at the forefront of social justice… until they made the mistake of making a board of executives who threw these founding visionaries under a bus in favor of corporate greed. I’d be pissed too. Maybe even enough to write two books worth of greivancs.
Their T-shirts were really decent quality, the stretchy material T-shirts used to be made of and were quite cute but I was running low on funds and couldn’t afford the $30, instead opting for a pin to add to my overloved purse.
Someday I likely will come back to do a factory tour and probably buy a T-shirt and a book. All and all it was a cute little distraction for a bit.
The first bridge I came to was the Carlton Bridge on Carlton Road. Super easy find! I drove right to it! It was nestled between a lot of farmland and some houses, a really pretty area and there was a turn off to park. It’s a one-lane two-way bridge which isn’t unusual, luckily there was no traffic and better still there was a delightful little path that went down to the bottom of it where I could splash in the water and play with the camera. It was quiet here and quite beautiful. I was delighted by this. You go to one covered bridge and you sort of feel like you’ve seen them all but this one was just so sweet, so serene, that it really made me instantly fond of it. Other people were too. I got a few people slowing down to check out Daisy’s lovely new tatts and just as I drove away an old man pulled in, smiling.
The next bridge was on Sawyer’s Crossing. My GPS didn’t seem to know which road was Sawyer’s Crossing and this area was super confusing, filled with all sorts of winding roads all connecting to each other in what I can only say is the most disorienting rat’s nest of turns I have seen in a long long time. I did eventually find the bridge by looking for a river on the GPS map and going towards it. However by this time there was a sports car behind me, nudging Daisy’s poor ass, so I had to go over the bridge instead of stopping. As it turns out there’s no place to park, AT ALL. There’s no parking lot, no turn offs, you could barely pull over aside the road far enough to let another car go coming form the other direction. It was weird. I found three trails down a nearby road but not their beginning, just their middle which went across the road. My curiosity was peaked but I didn’t really know how to explore that further. Instead I wound over that damn bridge two more times, both times a car appearing out of the middle of nowhere to ride my bumper. I got annoyed, never did manage to snap a photo, though it looks much like the other bridge, just lacking in the quiet charm.
The third bridge is called Thomson Bridge and it is right on Main Street, has a pedestrian walkway right over it, and ample parking! I couldn’t have asked for better! Instantly I liked this bridge too. It was bigger but still only one lane for cars and one for pedestrians. It spanned a lovely river and a dam which apparently doesn’t exist anymore. It was such a drop dead gorgeous day I loitered and took marble photos for quite a while. Some cars passed but not many and going back to the car I was struck by how beautiful the decaying wool mill behind it was. I wanted to explore that further so I hopped in my car, turned it on, drove over the bridge, and turned down a nearby street to see the ruins better.
To end one day’s worth of chasing waterfalls I drove up to Rumford falls just as it was starting to get a bit dark. I hadn’t realized this was also the location of another one of the things on my list of roadside attractions – a giant Paul Bunyan statue complete with Babe the big blue ox!
Sadly I showed up at the wrong time of year and the falls were completely dry… nothing really to see here except a series of weird Indian Cut-Outs?? I guess Maine hasn’t been seen by the PC police yet… but anyway! If you’re going to go see this, go in the spring when there is a flow! Unless you’re just here to take cheeky photos with Paul Bunyan…. he’s out in the parking lot and just as tacky and hilarious as he looks. Great opportunity for selfie mischief! I would say I look like a total dork with my jeans still rolled up from playing in the water but then I realized I’m hugging a big blue ox soooo…..
Screw Auger Falls was another one of the waterfalls listed on the
But with that all said and done Screw Auger Falls was an awesome little spot. Besides having two waterfalls within easy walking distance the smaller of the two allowed for a local swimming hole where children splashed about in the shallow water. Adults mostly loitered around the edges because this place was made of natural granite which had been worn very slick and smooth by the erosive nature of water and perhaps by retreating glaciers before that. On top of that algae grew over many bits which made for an intensely slick surface. None-the-less I had been driving all day and it was in the 80’s. Despite my lack of swimwear I decided to roll up my jeans, lop off my trusty Converses, and wade right in! The water was just above where I had rolled up my jeans at the deepest point across the river where I had started. It had taken me a good ten minutes to get this few feet because of the slick nature of the rocks. Children here knew how to navigate this danger as they slid around on their bellies like joyful seals. It was a sight to see! When I managed to get into this somewhat deep spot I bent down and splashed in the water letting it whoosh over my face and arms, essentially bathing in the river with my clothes still on.
The ice cold water felt almost baptismal in a way. I’ve been playing in a lot of rivers these past few months and every time it’s the same – the healing properties of the waters come from the psychological boost you get when you can almost feel all the negativity in your life just washing over your skin and tumbling down stream never to be seen again. At long last I was encouraging my true hippie nature to come out and play. How joyful I have been getting back in touch with the beauty of New England, and cranking up the radio as I go – singing along loudly and badly to Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and all the music I had stopped listening to over the years when I never should have. The raucous screaming guitars and belted out rhythmus soothing my soul. At night I escape into another long forgotten guilty pleasure – beatnik literature, now with far more bite and meaning with my age and life experience. It’s interesting to almost reach back in time and touch another generation with such a powerful wanderlust. In addition to this seeing all these new beautiful places and meeting so many wonderful people had relit something powerful and intense in my heart – such a strong feeling of connection and wonder. In remembering who I am I learned who I need to be.
