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!
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!
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 
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.
Most days when I set out on an adventure I end up in Narnia, somewhere hidden and unexpected, somewhere full of whimsy and joy. I was expecting nothing short of this on Friday when I found myself once again crawling out of my own skin to get out. It’d been a week of bad insomnia and health issues so I didn’t get out until way later than I should have but I still had great hopes when I set off. I was going to go to Vermont, for what reason I wasn’t sure, and coming home from Vermont I was going to stop at a fabric store or two so I could purchase some cloth with which to start designing my own clothes. Little was I to know that day’s adventure would be more of a misadventure.
Somehow I came across Gifford Woods State Park as a destination. Another blogger had been around Kent Pond and took some lovely snaps when there was still snow on the ground. I figured this was a good starting place so ignoring the faintest pain behind my eye, a sure sign of a migraine to come, I hopped in the car, programmed the GPS, and set out on the two hour drive.
As usual the drive was gorgeous. I ended up winding down all sorts of country roads, through the mountains which where all starting to become flush with red, orange, and yellow. It made my heart beat just a little faster. I passed many places I wanted to check out but I knew I had to get to the trails soon because it gets dark in the woods several hours before it gets dark everywhere else and I was already trying to beat the clock.
I started entering the Killington area to find this was a community that seemed to be based on skiing. The mountains were striped with deforestation, the result of creating many ski paths down them, and the little businesses all seemed swanky and cute. I even passed a place called Cyco Bikes. Vermont has always been super fond of punderful business names.
I think the answer was no but I was soon inundated with about eighty different things at once. This super friendly woman handed me not one but two maps and proceeded to point out about fifty different trails and why each was great as well as directions to them because none of the ones she was pointing out attached to the parking lot (I think that was the one trail she didn’t mention!) Some had old hardwood trees which I am sure are nice but if I remember right most of the trees that turn color are soft wood. Some had waterfalls. Some were a three hour hike and attached to other trails, some were fifteen minutes. Eventually she got to the pond. I asked politely about that one. Again she gave me two different answers. I could go out of the parking lot, take a left, and take it from there for a two to three hour trail or I could go some other farther away destination down several roads and have a fifteen minute hike and some waterfalls. I did the first as her second set of directions completely baffled me.
I found a spot near where I parked the car that looked like it could be a trail, be it a horribly overgrown one. So I entered and found myself about five inches deep in mud. Whatever this was had all sorts of shoe prints going in two directions at a tiny fork. I went towards the lake and slogged through the muck about twenty feet before the foot prints dried up and I was hit with even deeper mud and a wall of forest. I tried the other side and came across the same issue. I left. Maybe it was on the other side of this little beach? There did seem to be some sort of path through the reeds behind the bulletin board… I was able to walk maybe thirty feet on that “path” where I could see a beaver lodge but unless I wanted to swim the rest of the way around the lake there was no way around that. Clearly based on the footprints I wasn’t the only one having this problem.
Annoyed I left. I figured I could find a trail, any trail, and find something good on it, so back to the car I went. The problem is I am still driving the borrowed Prius and this was not the area to be driving a Prius. It was a fifty mile an hour road where all the locals were going seventy and they were pissed if you wanted to stop at one of these trail heads or slow down in any way. I didn’t even have a chance because upon leaving the parking lot I was greeted with a steep hill and the Prius refused to pick up speed. I got to fourty, maybe forty five, and a pick up behind me was up my tail pipe from out of nowhere. He was driving so fast and aggressively I thought I’d be nice, pull over, and let him pass. That didn’t make him happy either as he blared his horn as he whooshed by. I don’t know what he expected me to do… I can only press the gas pedal so far. If the car refuses to go the car refuses to go and we are on a fucking mountain after all. This happened a couple times until I finally found another trailhead, the Sherbourne Trail. This time there was a huge sign aside the road and a very obvious parking lot. Granted I could not find this particular path on the map.
I got out. There were numerous people, all accompanied by mountain bikes. One look at the path and I knew that’s what it was for, not for hikers, even though it wasn’t marked as such with any signage. Fuck it. It was a little over a mile long, claiming to be a “mountain pass.” I thought why not, mountain passes have summits, and that would be perfect for some foliage photos. Up I went zigzagging and stepping aside whenever I heard a bike coming up behind me. The cyclists were all super sweet and some were even laughing, all of them thanked me for stepping aside.
There wasn’t much to see here… a number of mossy rocks but not much else. A few times I came across a smell that was wonderful and sweet and brought me right back to my childhood but I couldn’t tell you what it was. Since the trail zigzagged and branched a few times I was trying to keep focused on the orange trail markers…. but I think whoever was putting them up was colorblind because they’d inadvertently turn pink from time to time for no reason. Usually when this happens it means two trails are converging. I saw no evidence of this.
I ended up where there was some sort of construction. Two twenty something year old men were putting down a bridge. I hadn’t passed that before… did I? How the hell did I get here? And more importantly did I have the courage to fess up and admit I was lost? Not at first. I passed them, knowing immediately that was the wrong decision when my poor little converses sank in the mud. I hadn’t passed mud…. this was the wrong way… but I still had my pride. I walked a little ways but this time the sound of cars was so distant I could barely hear them at all. My back up plan was to find a road and hitchhike back to the car if, God forbid, I ended up truly and utterly lost. I headed back, sheepishly, and asked where the fuck I was. I had a nice little chat with these two very friendly guys, and one of them said, “Go out to the intersection and take a left. Keep taking lefts. You’ll end up back at the parking lot.” Thank God I knew which trail head I had come or they wouldn’t have known where to send me either. They sheepishly admitted this trail was brand new and as of yet poorly marked. I didn’t even see the intersection coming up… but I saw it going back and kept going, and going, and going, until as promised, about a mile and a half away, sat the Prius, also looking sheepish, it somehow found itself cuddled up to another Prius (with a bike rack??) and a horse trailer. The horse trailer made me laugh. Clearly someone else didn’t know this was a bike path so I’m not that numb after all.
By now I was overheated, dehydrated, exhausted, and my migraine was starting to kick in full force. That’s never a good thing when you’ve got nausea and have to navigate down curving mountain roads and psychotic 180 degree loop-de-loop styled New England exits. By now it was five in the evening. I’d been on that trail for more than two hours. There’d be no extra foliage shots on the way home for me and I wouldn’t be stopping at any fabric stores either with my head pounding like this. About fifty minutes from home I started getting super sick and started to look for places to pull off the road and take a nap but by then all the picnic areas and rest stops seemed to have disappeared. As I entered Keene, thirty five minutes from home, I debated stopping in the city somewhere but by then it was only thirty five minutes. I could handle it, couldn’t I? Driving by was a decision I soon regretted as I stared at the clock every five minutes, watching it tick down, desperately wanting to be home. By the time I pulled in the driveway it took all my strength not to open the car door and just barf all over the ground. I was crazy dizzy as I tottled back to the house and collapsed immediately into bed. Better luck next time? I sure hope so!
Today I needed to drive – desperately. So I made an excuse to go out and somehow ended up three hours away in Montepelier Vermont just as the sun was starting to go down. My aim was to find a castle in the woods. Instead I found a sweet little dog park, a lot of aging hippies, and a gorgeous cemetery. Green Mount Cemetery is actually famous. The stones there are clearly for rich people and are exquisite. Nestled between the green mountains the view from the cemetery is breathtaking. It’s a popular fall destination spot because it’s even more beautiful when the trees turn color. I was a couple weeks early for that but this didn’t stop me from ambling in and checking the place out. The sign at the gate said it closes at dusk but in true Vermont fashion the only thing making sure this happened was those tiny forgettable little signs. This place didn’t even have a gate anymore, just five separate open entrances. Suffice to say I took my time.
I may not have found the castle I was looking for but I did find a castle-like structure at the entrance of the cemetery! That was close enough and besides the drive up there was all I needed to settle my frazzled mind. I find I am needing more and more intellectual stimulation these days and it’s driven me in some odd directions. Driving for three hours into the mountains seemed to ease this need. Just between you and me I caterwauled a great deal of the way until I nearly lost my voice. That’s what the open road is all about – freedom. Freedom of movement, freedom of intellectual curiosity, freedom to butcher your favorite classic rock songs as loudly as you can muster.
