Duke Ellington/S. VT Tour Post I

It's day three of our Southern Vermont tour and currently I am yawning while Tyler naps in our beautiful room at the Arlington Inn, in Arlington, Vermont. Thursday we packed up Fred and dropped him off at Tom and Donna's and then cruised down to Hanover to check in at our first B&B (The Trumbull House) and then meet up with Matty at the hospital. Next we drove to the Jenny Brook Bluegrass Festival in Tunbridge where we enjoyed music by Rhonda Vincent, The Grascals and The Tennessee Mafia Jugband. It was cold and slightly rainy but we all had a great time regardless. Here are some pics to prove it:

Matt with Rhonda Vincent

Tyler with Rhonda

Tennessee Mafia Jugband - the ultimate in ridiculous!

On Friday morning, we enjoyed an enormous breakfast at the B&B before heading to Woodstock where we did nothing except visit the bank!  (Oh, and we also stopped by the Co-op that Matt loves - it was an awesome grocery store!) We took the scenic route to Weston where we stopped in at the Vermont Country Store (yummy cheese sampling here) and had lunch at the Bryant House. Then it was back on the road to check into our next B&B before my pre-natal massage - which was incredible. We had already eaten ourselves silly so we had a low-key dinner of Shaw's deli selections in the room before watching "The King's Speech" on the laptop.

This morning we had another scrumptious breakfast and then got ready for our driving tour. We went to Bennington first to visit the battle monument and then visited the First Congregational Church - home of Robert Frost's grave. We walked around in downtown Bennington and came across the Crazy Russian Bakery - which Ty had read a review of in Vermont Life. We stopped in for treats and then took the long way through the National Forest and the towns of Wilmington, Jamaica, Stratton, Wardsboro and others. We had lunch at a restaurant with a deck on the Deerfield River. The sun popped out just in time for us to enjoy our meal! The goal was to get back to Manchester in time to visit Hildene, summer residence of Robert Todd Lincoln, but we were too late. We visited the lovely gift shop and decided we could come back in the morning before we drive to Connecticut. (There was a wedding about to happen while we were there... 27 members in the bridal party! Talk about fancy! All the license plates in the parking lot said "Mass.")

The "Covered Bridges" Moose at the monument

Bennington Battle Monument

Robert Frost grave

Tonight we have much reading to complete on Duke before our class starts, so I better get off here and get busy!