Aaahh – I wonder what the poor people are doing?

Bob and I headed off from our friends in Vermont yesterday morning, stopping by a neighbours house to pick up a couple of pints of Maple Syrup (have sugar maple tree; wait until Spring; place tap in trunk; voila! Maple Syrup!) on the way.

We headed up to Montpelier, the capital of the state with it’s miniature version of the White House for the State legislature (looks like it was borrowed from Cockington Green), and a gleaming gilded dome on top. We filled up with petrol and got our bearings before hitting the back roads across the breadth of the state east towards New Hampshire. This most rural of the US States was breadthtaking in its pastoral autumn beauty – although many of the colours had been lost over the past cold snap, the rolling green hills with fat lazy dairy cows were framed at impossible intervals by creeks, brooks and rivers that wound their way through the landscape over water smoothed stones and under a thick canopy.

Barns were in various state of repair, from freshly painted russet red, adorned with Barn Stars, pumpkins and other decorations, through to barely there structures of weather beaten planks. It was not a quick route, but very beautiful. Before too long though we had made it to the border of Vermont and New Hampshire, and travelled along the River which formed it’s border.