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After arriving late night in Manchester, NH to find our
rental car was NOT waiting we thought this trip would not be a good one.
We got a car, but it had no registration so we ended up with an SUV. Not
exactly what we wanted with high gas prices. But we headed Northwest to
Vermont and things got better quickly.
Armed with a computer printout of Covered Bridge locations we
turned south at Lebanon, NH and found Covered Bridge number 23. A bit further
south was the coup de' grace of covered bridges, the 449-foot long
Cornish-Windsor Bridge over the Connecticut River. It's the longest wooden
bridge in the US, and the longest 2-span wooden bridge in the world! It
was built in 1866 for $9,000. It's been renovated since then!
Covered Bridge 23 (Lebanon NH) |
Covered Bridge 23 (above)
Cornish Windsor Bridge (below &Right)
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Private Bridge Near Barre, Vt |
Union Village Bridge, Vt (1867) |
Warren Bridge (1880) Warren, Vt |
I should note that we did not visit all these bridges on
the same day or in this order. The tiny town of Northfield Falls, Vermont
is home to 4 covered bridges. They looked quite close on the map but we
did not realize that we'd see two at the same time, and a third bridge less than
1/2 mile up the road!
Station Bridge (1872) and Newell Bridge (background) Northfield Falls,
Vt |
Newell Bridge (1872) Northfield Falls, Vt |
Upper Bridge (1872) Northfield Falls, Vt |
Slaughter Bridge (1872) Northfield Falls, Vt (above and right) |
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Mosely Bridge (1889) Northfield Vt |
Sayers Bridge (?) Thetford Center, Vt |
Sayers Bridge |
Sayers Bridge |
Our trip included some TV/Movie roots. We stopped in
East Corinth, Vermont, mentioned in the closing credits of the movie "Beetlejuice."
The town looked nothing like any scene in the movie. There was not even a
covered bridge!
We spent a night at the "Waybury Inn" in East
Middlebury, Vermont. This was more familiar as it was used in the exterior
shots in the TV show "Newhart" where it was known as the
"Stratford Inn." After the TV show ended the Inn was painted its
current color.
And, near the town of Stowe, Vermont, we walked the grounds
of the "Von Trapp Family Inn." This is where the Von Trapp
Family settled after leaving Austria. You can see a dramatization of their
escape in the movie "The Sound Of Music." Their actual story
quite different than the movie but they did leave all their riches behind and
arrived in the United States penniless. They rose to fame here as a singing
family that toured the country. They eventually founded the Inn as a
family music camp.
As you can see above, we also stopped in Montpelier,
Vermont where we spent the night at a bed-and-breakfast and toured the Vermont
State House. A tour of the Ben and Jerry's ice cream plant, also near
Stowe, was the tastiest stop. We rode a gondola most of the way up Mount
Mansfield and Paul kept going up a treacherous path to the highest point in
Vermont. We thought it would be hard to beat the beautiful scenery but as
you'll see on another page, upstate New York between Lake Champlain and Lake
Placid gave Vermont quite a challenge.
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