We spent the long weekend away in Vermont. On Saturday, as we headed in, we stopped in Wilmington for lunch at Dot’s Diner, and then were able to actually wander around the stores on Main Street. Usually, things are closed when we come through, so it was novel to see everything open. Later that day, we had a party to attend, as K’s house. There was much good food, and many interesting people. We’re definitely looking forward to going back again.
On Sunday, we took it easy, and did the trip up to Manchester, by way of the East Road, starting in Bennington. This road fairly quickly devolves into a dirt road, and runs through Glastenbury, a town that unincorporated early last century because the population dropped so low. Glastenbury Road is now deep woods (third picture), and we saw wild turkeys and a buck on the road. There are a few houses up there (several of which looked very nice from the fleeting glimpses we caught), but it was pretty serenely quiet. Eventually, the East Road dumps out onto the interestingly named Butternut Gutter Road, and that then leads to pavement, and Manchester. The closer you get to Manchester, the more lovely the houses get. It was definitely a lovely drive.
In Manchester, we stopped at the Northshire Bookstore, which is a really wonderful independent bookstore. Since the last time we’d been there, a butterfly garden had gone in the back, which is really lovely.
I also stopped at Yarn for Your Soul, the Manchester LYS. It’s in a really neat old building, and had a pretty good selection of yarn, and some nice rosewood needles. They were a bit short on sock yarn, which is my impulse purchase of choice, but did actually have Noro, which I think I can safely say I have no desire to work with. I really didn’t like the way it felt. So, instead I bought some Pagewood Farms sock yarn:
We headed home on Monday, and stopped in Portsmouth, first at Macy’s, to quickly say hi to our friend T, and then at the Barnes and Noble. Between the Arts & Craft patterned cards I bought at Northshire, and the two large blank books, and Lady Cottington’s Pressed Fairy Book that I bought at B&N, and I think I managed to do my normal week long vacation book buying spree proud. I normally am able to resist the lure of the blank books, but these are actually full regular page sized, so even if I don’t use them for the writing I promised myself I’d do, I’ll use them for my personal version of scrape-booking. So they were a good buy.
The trip ended with a late lunch at the Flo’s Hot Dogs at the Kittery Trading Post (open later than the original when it’s open during the summer), and then a stop by Hamilton House. Hamilton House was lovely, and will get its own post.
It was a good weekend. I do still wish we were going away for a whole for vacation, but I’m glad I at least got this much traveling out of my system. I have a few different ideas for being productive around here, but nothing that I have to do (which seems to be the key for getting things done for vacation), so I’m starting to get excited for my week off at home in two weeks.