It’s been a week since we’ve returned home from
Vermont, I needed time to recollect and realize that I’m home and not in that winter wonderland of small towns and mountain views anymore.
Four nights, five days, it was a whirlwind week of winter activities that we don’t do – despite our equal amount of that cold white stuff. I’ll tell you what helps:
snow pants… and
really good mittens. These two handy items kept us out in the cold on walks in the snow with snowshoes, and on the “hills” of
Sugarbush where we had our first ski lessons. And we are looking forward to getting a lot more wear out of them since now we’re not afraid of snow anymore.
Our
Bed & Breakfast (the
Inn at the Round Barn Farm) - -actually an Inn since the owners don’t live on site – is nestled in the tiny town of
Waitsfield on the edge of the Green Mountains. When we arrived later in the day Monday, it was snowing and we could only see as far as the next couple of cars ahead of us. That night we left the Inn to go to dinner at
The Green Cup. The next morning, when we left the Inn, we realized that hillsides and mountains, peaks high up where you could see the ski runs carved out of the mountain, surrounded us. It was one of the most beautiful and unexpected sights I’ve seen in a long time. It was my first “Vermont” moment.
The Inn boasts over 200 acres of land, land that’s not easy to tell when everything is completely white. There’s more exploring in the springtime, but in the winter the Inn is the perfect place to read in front of the fire or snowshoe the trails with the Inn’s mascot
Cooper, the black lab. I wasn’t sure if we needed to “book” him, but the minute we started fumbling with the snowshoes, he came bouncing in. I guess he was now “booked.”
Breakfasts at the Inn were three-course meals and they were so delicious: banana pancakes, French toast, eggs with kale and potatoes, mushroom and cheese omelets – along with fresh fruit and a different pastry each day. We ate everything.
We wanted to try the tri-fecta of snow activities –
snowshoe, downhill ski, & cross country ski – but we only managed two of them. By Thursday (x-country day), our legs couldn’t take it anymore so we went on tours of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream and we visited the
Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, and then we enjoyed a lovely dinner at the
1824 House. We also made some time to go visit Burlington and see the University of Vermont, and walk down Church Street. We even toured the
Magic Hat Brewery. It was extremely cold so we didn’t spend too much time there; although we did have a great lunch at
Magnolia Bistro – very vegetarian friendly (I had the mock tuna sandwich with garbanzo beans and a side of quinoa).
Snowshoeing is a somewhat hard activity when the snow is piled high and soft; you’re doing a lot of leg lifting that a stair master could never duplicate. For the most part, our trails were somewhat paved and matted down, but any incline was felt in the back thighs. Cooper, the guide dog, was the perfect companion (other than my husband) and he led us through the trails (even though we had the hand drawn map from the Inn), and when we stopped to take photos or fix our snowshoes, he waited for us or ran back towards us. He made you feel as if you
were the only ones to take him out and he loved you the most – the perfect type of dog.
Downhill skiing – you remember how scared I was when I wrote about this the first time – was so much fun. After doing a reconnaissance mission on the ski places, we chose the place that had a dedicated time for beginner adult lessons,
Sugarbush (Lincoln Peak). It was just the 2 of us, so we had a private lesson. We advanced from a flat surface where we learned to walk with the skis, to the
beginner hills called the Welcome Mat/First Time and the Easy Rider. We didn’t advance to the Ski Lifts (that would have been Day 2 of the lessons), so we got up the hill using the “
conveyer belt.” It was the produce checkout line of kids and ski instructors, dads and moms toting their 4 years olds in tiny skis… and us. It was quite a site and maybe someone else with a bigger ego couldn’t have been made to feel so humble. Or another way to look at it … good thing
Matt and I have no shame.
Matt fell three times; I managed to stay on the skis although I almost lost my balance and felt my heart fall into my stomach. The hill looks a lot higher when you’re on it, than when you’re looking towards it. My goal was to look where I was going, not at the bottom.
But in the end we fell in love with skiing and can’t wait to “get more mileage” as they all say up here. It’s nice that we have small ski places in IL/WI that we can go to.
Check back here, and I should have all my photos posted this weekend.
