Vermont - Day 10 - Brattleboro

Brattleboro North KOA
Sunday, 10 June 2018

today's route

Purple Gallinule

The bird book says I've been seeing birds that aren't here, which figures.  Birdwatching has always struck me as that kind of activity.

For instance, at my last campground, I would swear I saw a Purple Gallinule, but the bird book says they're not here.  I wouldn't have thought there were that many birds that look like them, though, and it was in the right habitat.

Chipping Sparrow

I've also been seeing a bird that I think must be a Chipping Sparrow.  Pretty little guy.  The ones I've been seeing look like this picture so I guess that's it.  (And of course I haven't taken any of these photos myself; someone else with real talen

And for my final bird report, I saw a waxwing that the bird book says has to be a Cedar Waxwing because the other kind isn't here.  But you can't miss that crest.

Cedar Waxwing

I'm having an easier time with the plants - they tend to sit still long enough for me to get a decent look at them.  I'm seeing lots of blooming rhododendrons, huge hostas (as tall as Dexter's back), blackberries and peonies.  I haven't seen this collection of plants since I left Washington - makes me homesick.

I stopped in Wilmington today after I left the campground because I wanted to use the post office.  It wasn't until I tried to figure out why it wasn't open that I realized today is Sunday.  Oh well.  While I was in town I walked the dogs down the main (and almost only) street and saw an unusual trellis.  Actually, I think there's another word for this but haven't been able to remember what it is.  Nice shape, huh?

At the Village Roost Cafe and Marketplace (with a picture of a rooster outside), I found this sign:

Pretty well sums up my attitude.

Molly Stark

Inscription at the base

The southern "highway" across Vermont from the New York border to the New Hampshire border is Vermont Route 9, also known as the Molly Stark Byway.  They make sort of a big deal about Molly Stark here and, until today, I haven't been able to figure out why.  She was the wife of Gen. John Stark who fought and won the Battle of Bennington, which says why they might name a highway after him but not after her.  None of the museums I've been in have told me.  But today in Wilmington I came across this statue that helped explain it.  You never know when you're going to stumble on answers.

My original intent after leaving Wilmington was to go to a place called the Southern Vermont Natural History Museum, not far east of town.  Its website made it look interesting and I thought they could tell me about the birds and mammals here.  But when I got there I had second thoughts.  The building was perched at the side of the road on the side of a mountain, with almost no parking, and the entrance looked like it was down on the floor below the street level.  And actually the street wasn't a street but was Route 9, speed limit 50 mph, going downhill and around a curve right at the building.  And the building looked definitely rickety, which made me nervous.  Take away even one of those conditions and I would probably have checked it out anyway, but with all that combined, I didn't even bother getting out of the RV.  It just didn't look like it was worth the risk to me.

Instead I went on into Brattleboro, figuring I'd get to the Estey Organ Museum 1 a little early - I was thinking it opened at noon and I'd just walk the dogs and do a little on-line work.  But I got it wrong - it didn't open until 2:00.  I looked through the windows and I'm pretty sure it was only 1 room.  If we hadn't had several hours to wait, I'd probably have gone in anyway because they had maybe a dozen different kinds of organs in there and it looked pretty neat.  But I'm not really an organ person and I didn't want to wait 3 hours just for that, so we went on.  But you might want to check out the link to that website because the company's history is interesting.

Brattleboro is smack on the state line (aka the Connecticut River), so there was a high proportion of New Hampshire license plates - and quite a few Massachusetts plates, for that matter.  I saw one car with a bumper sticker that was made to look like a MA license plate, and it said: "Bumpah Stickah!"  And down below in smaller letters it said: "For the cah."  My momma would have enjoyed it.

There are still a lot of Victorian houses in town and very old commercial buildings, including one or two Art Deco style.

Brattleboro has a tradition that I just missed by a week - the Strolling of the Heifers.  They're a lot more laid-back here than in Pamplona, I guess.  I saw on line that they do a parade complete with cows, of course, and there was a picture showing a couple of people with some cows, and the people were holding a big sign that said : LUKE, I AM YOUR FARMER.  They've got a sense of humor here, too.  I'm sorry I missed it.

We stopped at a grocery store, ate lunch in the shade of some big trees at the edge of the parking lot, and then came on to this campground about 4 miles north of town.

Nice place.  For some reason I'm feeling really tired and would like to stay a little longer than one night, but I've already spent a third of the month hanging out in the very narrow lower section of the state.  There's still so much to see.  Well, I'll see how I feel in the morning.  Mornings are always better, I find.