The Bridges of Bennington County

Kitties voted this: "the best Costco parking lot EVER"...

We got to Vermont yesterday (Monday, Oct 6th).  We headed out from Silver Lake and went south to find a Costco!  There was one in Nashua near the southern border of New Hampshire, and we parked the trailer, let the cats tour that part of the parking lot, then put them in the trailer and went in to shop.  We stocked up on all our Costco essentials, then headed pretty well straight west through New Hampshire and Vermont to Bennington county, near the western border of the state.


The scenery along the southern portion of both New Hampshire and Vermont (hwys 101 and 7 especially) are absolutely breath-taking at this time of year. The vast landscape, with all the fall colours, was so amazing to see.  Vermont is named for it's "green mountains" from the French "vert" for green, and the vistas are amazing and would be green in the summer, but are now alive with the colours of autumn..







We found an RV campground near Prospect Ski Hill (which looks as if it needs some improvements - like a ski lift!) called Greenwood, and got landed before dark.  The kitties went out for a nice romp around the grounds, and they chased each other around the grassy open areas, which was great fun to watch.  It was quite clear when we had the cats out, and we could see the full(ish) moon rising over the trees.  The weather changed overnight, however, and it rained quite heavily.



This morning (Tues, Oct 7th) we got up to dark skies and wet grass!  We took the cats out again and went a different direction in the park. Sam found a nice bridge to climb under and sit on to survey the landscape.

"When is it going to get nice outside???" says Sam...

Tawny mostly ran around the grassy areas and chased bugs. After their walk, the cats went in and John & I went out!  We drove into Bennington town to do some sight-seeing.  It was a full day!  There are loads of interesting museums in which to while away a blustery cool day. We started at the Bennington Museum of Art which housed many galleries of artwork.  Of note to me were the works of Bob Kuhn, a Vermont Wildlife artist who started out doing cover artwork for Field & Stream and Outdoor Life magazine.  Later in life, he worked for his own pleasure, and he worked in pretty well every medium from sketches to watercolour, acrylic and bronze sculptures!  He travelled extensively and drew on his travels for new inspiration - such as elephants and wild cats, along with still drawing and sculpting wildlife from the New England area.  The other fellow that amazed me was Floyd Scholz, a master carver who specializes in birds.  He carves and then he paints, in such detail (!) that I wanted to touch the "feathers" which were wood!  I could have stayed in that gallery for 2 hours.
Also in that museum was the Covered Bridge museum.  Vermont has over 100 of the remaining 300 covered bridges in the New England Area.  The display talked about the architectural technology advances over the years, as well as show-casing some of the more photographed bridges in the area.  They are truly romantic.

Henry Bridge

After the Covered Bridge museum, we headed to the Bennington Museum, which houses the greatest collection of paintings done by "Grandma Moses", as well as the schoolhouse where she went to school (and her kids and grandkids), and the oldest known surviving American flag, dating back to pre-1812.  Very cool.

  

John with the wooden horse in front of Bennington Museum

Dawn with "Ethan Allan" the lion... kind of like Calgary's cows, painted diffently per venue.

 We then went to the Bennington Battle Monument, erected in the late 1800's to commemorate the battle of 1777 where the New England forces defeated the British in two separate battles on the same day near what is now Bennington.  It showed that the "Americas" could defend their own against a major world power and so a major monument was erected to commemorate that - it is the tallest structure in Vermont at over 300 feet.  We rode to the the equivalent of the 20th storey to look out upon Bennington, and it was a marveous view over the autumn colours.

Looking east from the monument

Looking north from the monument: gorgeous colours!

We bought a book on American architecture whilst we were in Portland, Maine, but I have yet to read it!  The architecture in the New England states is absolutely amazing.  I look forward to knowing what the below houses are (in terms of architecture).  In the meantime, I just really liked them... and took pictures.

The horse-drawn carriage in front of "Henry House"

Henry House - a Bed & Breakfast in Bennington

A gorgeous house in downtown Bennington