Still in Vermont

This is our last day here in Vermont before we launch in a few hours for Gorham, NH in the White Mountains.  We've been having a good time.  The campground, Sugar Ridge, is quite nice, large sites, but a huge busy campground, and since the kids haven't gone back to school yet here in New England, well what can I say?

We went over to Cabot, VT to visit Cabot Creamery and of course buy a ton of cheese.  It is an interesting tour, but more importantly, they make fantastic cheese with their coop of farmers throughout New England.  It is a great, successful coop that's been in existence since 1919 when 94 farmers put up $5/cow and a cord of wood and bought an old creamery built in 1893 and began making butter.

Then we took a ride over to St Johnsbury for a decent lunch and a bit of sightseeing.  The weather has been very kind although it is a bit warm now into the mid 80's for a few days.

Yesterday we started off at the farmer's market in Danville then made our way to Barre (barry) to visit a granite quarry and processing company, Rock of Ages  It was very interesting and impressive.  The quarry is on a huge dome of granite, monument quality, not used for counter tops for example, that is 2 miles by 4 miles by 10 miles deep!  Enough at their present extraction rate for 4000 years!!  They have been in operation since 1885.

An older area

The granite silt from the drilling and cutting makes
the water the same color as the silt from glaciers

Cutting the huge blocks 10 feet thick

The cranes to move the blocks

Their granite was used for the WWII Memorial in Washington, and they explained that they were slowly changing out the marble headstones at Arlington Cemetery for granite as they will last much longer.
They had an idea back in 1951 to build outdoor bowling alleys from granite.  They felt it would showcase their granite and be a weatherproof alley that could be added to many resorts and mansions.  They got Brunswick to come and check it out and it turned out to be a dismal failure!  Seems the polished granite is so smooth that when you put spin on the ball, it has no effect!  So they have one alley set up that you can play on.

You can see in the picture how the "soft" concrete gutters
have worn and the granite lane has not

We then drove to a little lake to have a picnic lunch.  Very pleasant and beautiful.

Lunch time

A pair of loons were playing and eating as well.

It was a good day for our last in Vermont.