1. The Vermont Pub & Brewery in Burlington. If you go there for just one thing, get their Cheese & Gravy fries. They’re delicious. Other good things on their list include the Jalapeno poppers and Buffalo Style chicken fingers. Their brewfries (beer-battered) are pretty tasty as well. Their own microbrews are definitely recommendable, especially the smoked stout (smoked over maple, hickory and applewood).
2. The Magic Hat brewery in South Burlington. They have regular tours available and their artifactory sells a variety of merchandise. But most important is their tap (of course). They have a variety of beers available for tasting here and you can also buy “growlers“, which is a great way to bring home some of their beers that they don’t sell in stores.
3. Quiznos. Even though it’s a chain restaurant, I like it better than Subway. I think they’re subs are more varied and tastier than the ones at Subway.
4. Tiny Thai in Winooski, VT. This is a small restaurant, be prepared for a wait. The food makes up for it though. Tasty food, generous portions. If you like Thai food, you’ll love this place. Their Tom Yam is delicious.
5. Henry’s Diner in Burlington. This place has great food. I can definitely recommend the Philly Cheese Steak skillet breakfast. Bring a good appetite, though. It’s a big plate of food.

Overall I had my fill of typical New England food (and some Thai) over the weeks of my vacation and I found some places I will surely want to visit again.

From Burlington, we took the interstate to Montepelier, where we went onto Route 302.
This took us to Barre, where we saw a few very interesting sculptures along the road. Defnitely a place to check out further.
After Barre, we drove on along route 302 into New Hampshire.

In Bath, NH we saw an old covered bridge along the road that we just had to cross. It was quite long and a bit scary to cross the first time. On the other side we found out it was built in 1832.
Of course, we had to cross back to continue our journey, though that wasn’t as freaky as the first time.

From Bath, our trip took us through Lisbon on the way to Littleton, where we spent about an hour trying to find GG Allin’s grave in St. Rose Cemetery. His grave was covered in broken bottles and what seemed to be a small pile of human excrement.

After Littleton, the trip took us south past Franconia along I-93 to the Indian Head resort near Lincoln.
The view of this face in profile in the side of the mountain was very nice, especially when the sun was starting to go down a bit.

On the way back north to Franconia, we saw the “Sleeping Dog”. That’s not the official name of the mountain range, but it really looked like it. We took a small detour to watch the Mt. Washington hotel at night. It looked really nice all lit up.

After that, we checked in at Hillwinds Lodge in Franconia, had dinner, went to a store for a 12-pack of beer and spent the remainder of the evening just hanging out in the motel room with beer + music.

The next morning after breakfast, we went south into the Franconia Notch state park, where we stopped at regular intervals for more scenic views. We visited ‘the basin‘, a pothole that was eroded at the end of the last ice age. It looked really nice with the landscape mostly covered in a layer of snow.

From there, we went south to Lincoln, where we went onto route 112, also called the Kancamagus Highway. This scenic route took us all the way to Conway, with frequent stops along the way, most notably at Rocky Gorge. Some wild turkeys accentuated the scenic beauty of this route.

After a nice mexican lunch at Cafe Noche in Conway, we traveled up north along route 16 towards route 302 (a familiar number by now). After traveling through Crawford Notch, we stopped at Willey House for some more pictures. Unfortunately, the area looked to be closed down for the winter. Even all signs had been removed (except for a sign about black bears).

Shortly after Willey House, the trip was completed by a sudden moose sighting. After quickly turning around the car and backtracking a short bit, we were treated with a great view of a young female moose standing along the road before disappearing back into the forest.

The last stop on the trip was back at Mt. Washington for some pictures of the mountains lit up by the setting sun. After that, we took Route 302 back towards Barre, VT (with a mandatory two way trip over the covered bridge at Bath). From Barre, we took I-89 back to the Burlington area. Just before getting back to Burlington, a couple of meteors from the Leonid meteor swarm gave the trip a final finishing touch.

Overall, the trip into New Hampshire was definitely worth our time. I really enjoyed the trip, the scenery was stunning and the moose sighting just completed the whole package.

Pictures to follow, once I get around to editing them.

Some samples:

More pictures here!

We left from Burlington to South Hero and then took the Grand Isle ferry over to Plattsburgh, NY.
From there we drove around a bit, mostly going north until we got to Fort Montgomery (also called Fort “Blunder”) near Rouses Point, NY (very close to the Canadian border). We went back to the Vermont side of the lake there across a bridge.

Right after that, we got to the town of Alburg, VT .. or should I say Alburgh, VT? I don’t know .. but neither do the people that live there, it seems. There’s a whole disagreement going on about whether or not the town’s name should end in an H or not. Alburg(h) is sort of unique in that it’s the only part of the USA that actually only touches Canada and is surrounded by water on all other sides (Apart from Alaska).

From there we traveled back southwards towards Isle la Motte and visited St. Anne’s Shrine. It’s a really pretty outdoor church (though the church itself wasn’t open now).

After St. Anne’s Shrine, it was pretty much directly back to Burlington. The sun was setting anyway, so there wasn’t much left to be seen outside, except for the sunset over the Lake Champlain islands.

Overall, I took about 120 pictures today. I will try to upload some of them soon.

We landed at 12:15 AM. On the way down, we passed through some clouds where it definitely looked like it was snowing there. It’s not snowing yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it started snowing later this night.

We got checked into the motel and now it’s time for a good night’s rest.

So far, the trip went well. Left home this morning at 7:15 AM to go to the trainstation. My train to Schiphol had a delay of about 15 minutes, but that was ok, I had plenty of time to check in anyway.

Checked in, went through customs, did the whole security thing …

By 12:35 pm, we were away from the gate .. 13:00 we actually took off.
8 hours later, we landed in Philadelphia, 15:00 local time. It only took me 2 hours to get here !!

Going through the security checkpoint took the most time, but even that was a matter of about 5-10 minutes (getting all electronic devices from my bag, packing them all back in …)

Waiting for my connecting flight to Burlington now, which leaves at 8:55 PM. Only a bit over 3 hours left to wait. Good thing there’s wireless available here. I wouldn’t know what to do with so many hours of free time …

UPDATE 6:43 PM: Guess I spoke to soon. The connecting flight to Burlington has been delayed and is now scheduled for 10:13 PM. The streak of good luck was going to end sooner or later, I guess.