A long day of driving into Vermont, courtesy of Google Maps.
Date of trip: July 19, 2009
When I told J that I had chosen Brattleboro, Vermont as our destination for this trip, she replied, “Oh, Hippie central.” She’d apparently been there before, whereas I had not, and her reply was especially funny because I had chosen Brattleboro precisely because it was hippie central, having just read about it the day before. J was a little skeptical about going to Brattleboro because the drive, at two and half hours, was a bit of a stretch for a one-day trip. But I talked her into it, and we managed to leave the house by 10 that morning, a major accomplishment for us. We took Route 2 to Vermont, stopping only once at a gas station somewhere near Athol, which would not have been extraordinary except for the fact that there was no power, and we ending up using the bathroom by flashlight (which made a routine event interesting, I guess).
We rolled into Brattleboro at around 12:30, drove right into town, and parked in front of an art gallery called Gallery in the Woods. We weren’t in the woods, we were downtown, but despite the misnomer, the gallery was still a great place filled with unusual pieces that I wanted to buy. I noted some artists’ names in my iPhone to look up later (which I deleted accidentally, but that’s another story). The gallery was a good introduction to the town.
The Gallery
We spent the next hour exploring the shops on Main Street. In addition to the gallery, I should mention Mystery on Main, which you should visit if you are a mystery/crime fiction fan. We bought several books and an old Sherlock Holmes print, and we chatted with the store clerk and another customer (who turned out to be a writer for huffpo) about Wallander on PBS. So yeah, we were having fun in Brattleboro. Our kinds of dorks.
It was time for lunch. We ended up grabbing wraps from the local coop and sitting on a bench by the river. It was nice enough, but later, while exploring the rest of the town, we discovered the Riverside Cafe, and we wished we had gone there. The cafe sits right on the Connecticut River, which separates Vermont from New Hampshire. This bridge abuts the cafe.
This way to New Hampshire
We took about a million pictures of the bridge, walked around some more, and decided it was time to move on. The guide book made Putney, which was about nine miles to the north along the river (point C on the map), sound interesting, so we headed up route 9 to check it out. There wasn’t much to it: the town center is literally a crossing that has a paper mill, a few craft and glass shops, and a large and fairly weird place dedicated to selling baskets and other woven products. There were life-size animals made from basket material hanging from the ceiling (shark, monkey, eagle, alligator–you name it), which left us somewhat in shock, as you can imagine. Nearby, one of the craft stores offered a display made up of clay faces. I’m sure the feeling that I had as I gazed upon the wicker armadillo is captured here somewhere.
The Many Faces of Putney
Soon after, we stopped at a little country store along route 9, and we bought local berries and cheese (which turned out to be delicious). To get home, we decided to cut through New Hampshire, along route 101. We were worried that it would take too long, but it was still early enough in the evening that we thought we’d enjoy the country roads. The drive went quicker than expected, and we were home in time to make dinner.