Vermont and Ticonderoga

Left Littleton NH Friday morning and plans started changing, the weather continued not so good so in Vermont we did indoor stuff.  Visited a dairy cheese place.  Did you know New England and Vermont in particular had cows and lots of barns? Well, they do.  They also have maple syrup.  We went by one of those places too.  Had a tour, sampled syrup - you can do that. Neither place is terribly photogenic I thought so hence the blog is spared photos.  

We also stopped in Montpelier, the nation's smallest state capital. The Vermont State Senate looks like a fancy club - which it probably is.

Drove on to Middlebury, another of the small towns, where we stayed in a  B & B just outside of town (did not make it to Ticonderoga that day).

This is from the side yard of the Willow and Lotus B & B.  Note the grape vines in the foreground and the beginning of clearing skies.

Check out the Concord grapes.  And they were as good as they look too.  Man-oh-man did I ever enjoy them.

and check out the apples in the orchard in field behind the house.

 We think the name Willow and Lotus B & B came from the big Willow in the photo belowand the "Lotus"...

from the Vietnamese woman who with her husband, since deceased, who moved here 17 years ago after retirement to operate this B & B.  We liked her a lot.

On Saturday morning we left Middlebury and drove to Fort Ticonderoga stopping by a memorial to Samuel Champlain who in 1609 found Lake Champlain and fought with the Iroquois.  Named it too.

 And then on to Ticonderoga.  It looks just like it does in the paintings.

There were lots of re-enactors there on Saturday in period dress doing activities consistent with 1776, a year that we Americans occupied the fort and the lake, fought naval and land battles against the British in Champlain area.

The fort now has a large museum with a rather large collection of relics from the period including this uniform of a British Major Scheffling who was a loyalist from Detroit.

and these are two of the actual cannons that were at the fort when Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold captured the fort from the British in 1775. A young Henry Knox took these very cannons (along with many more) by sled in the dead of winter to Boston where General Washington used them to lift the siege of Boston in March of 1776.  Pretty neat, huh?  I thought so.  I am also taking their word for it.

Leaving the fort we took possibly our last ferry ride of the trip to cross from New York back into Vermont on our way to Concord NH for the evening.  Started raining while on the ferry and rained all the way to Concord. Loved the sign too. Did not have to pull the cord as the ferry was arriving.