Vermont Adventures

When describing my work as a geography educator, I sometimes say that I have taken students to Nicaragua, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Costa Rica, and even Vermont! I add that last one because field visits are equally important whether or not they require an airplane ticket, and although Vermont is not very far from where most of my students grew up, occasionally students thank me for the outing as soon as we cross the state line. New Hampshire is more commonly visited and in fact we usually pass through the Granite State on our way to the Green Mountain one, what with Pythagoras and his Theorem. 

Lake Champlain, Burlington
from Vermont Getaway 2026 on Flickr

All of which is to say that I very much enjoy being close enough to Vermont to visit it fairly often and I have very much appreciated the particular destination of those student outings. Around the time I started teaching a course we now call Land Protection, Lawrence Rockefeller completed the donation of his property in Woodstock to the National Park Service. I should say "one of his properties" because it is the pattern of the Rockefellers to retain some of their own revenue-generating properties near the lands they so generously donate to the American people. This is true in the US Virgin Islands and the Grand Tetons, for example, and it is true in the small town of Woodstock, where the Woodstock Inn is scarcely a stone's throw from the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park. I have been to the park close to 20 times now, though I've not stayed at the inn (keep reading for an inn that is more my speed). 

But I digress -- occupational habit of being this geographer. This post is meant to point readers to a couple dozen photos I took while on a brief vacation with my spouse, to visit friends from Massachusetts who now live up north. One family moved more than a decade ago to turn the Golden Stage Inn into the best B&B we know. Seriously, if you are going to southern Vermont at any time of the year, this is where you need to stay. The other friends moved more recently to Burlington, where one of them continues to be a hero nurse and the other enjoys academic retirement. 

Hildene Cottage, Manchester
from Vermont Getaway 2026 on Flickr

The photos are not of these friends (except for one canine!), but rather of places we visited near each of their homes. There is a lot about art, history, and landscapes worth sharing, as I have done in the descriptions of each photo on Flickr. (Yes, I am the one dinosaur still keeping Flickr in business.) This post also serves to point to some online resources hinted at by those captions. 

Aside from those provided above, the relevant links include:

• Hildene, The Lincoln Family Home in Manchester
• Southern Vermont Arts Center in Manchester
• Vermont Country Store in Weston and Rockingham
• Vermont Land Trust is not mentioned directly, but where I write that the Orton family as been involved in land protection, much of that work has been through VLT. I mention it here partly because it is a large enough organization that it might some day be a place of employ for some of the students who take my course. 
• Deep City Brunch and Events in Burlington is one of those rare places that makes a nice breakfast AND excellent coffee. It was recommended to us by our friends -- who know what a coffee snob I am -- and they were correct. It is a bit hard to find, but conveniently nestled between the Church Street shopping area and the waterfront parks.
• Green Mountain Horse Association and its Bridge to the Future Campaign are the organization and land-protection efforts that our friends in Burlington support. This is an example of the complexity of integrating the sustainability of landscapes with that of organizations. 
• Three Tomatoes Trattoria in Lebanon, New Hampshire gets honorable mention. It is not in Vermont, but for Pythagorean reasons cited above, it is on the way for those coming from eastern Massachusetts. This place is a wonderful, full service restaurant near the center of town. Great food, service, and atmosphere, with a lot of attention to visual arts.