We spent the last week in Stowe, VT. I've linked a lot of the places we went in case anyone else ever goes and wants to recommendations.
Monday was an 11 hour train ride from Philly to Waterbury, VT. It was a beautiful ride with the trees mostly starting to change colors. It went by pretty quickly, with both of us reading and taking photos out the window for most of the trip.
The train was about an hour late, so we didn't get to the hotel until 9:30 at night. By that time, most of Stowe ha shut down for the night. Luckily we managed to make last call at the hotel restaurant and get some appetizers.
We stayed at the Green Mountain Inn, which was absolutely great. The room was huge, with a king size bed, a hot tub, and a gas fireplace. The inn was right in the middle of historic Stowe, which is a cute little town which does not allow major chains. As a result, all the restaurants, chocolates, drug stores, and hotels are locally owned an operated. It was great to have so many options of so many great things.
Stowe Mercantile is their amazing everything store. It's got clothing, candy, syrup, books, and a little cafe. We got some of their butter cream fudge that was completely addictive (we ate over a pound of it in four days).
We toured the factory where they make Ben & Jerry's ice cream and ate lots of Cabot cheese at the Cabot Annex store.
The leaves were changing colors, with some leaves having red, yellow, and green all together. Their leaves turn a bright fiery orange or yellow, which made for some great photos.
We got to see a couple of great glass blowing studio, Little River Hotglass Studio. While we'd seen glass blowers at the Renaissance Faire before, this was dramatically better. The work was just gorgeous (and of course, we had to get a couple).
We saw lots of local artists with paintings and etchings that were way out of our price range, but at least we got a calendar with some of the art on it. We also bought some of the most beautiful sounding wind chimes that I've ever heard.
I'd be remiss if I did not mention Jack at Blazer Transportation. He got us around for the whole week and we would not have seen half the stuff that we did if he had not told us about it. Perhaps the highlight was the artist who made wood wild life sculptures... with a chainsaw.
Now we're back home, sifting through the 850 pictures from the wedding (we have to pick 36 for our album an 20 each for our parents...) and 450 pictures from the honeymoon.
On a fitness note...
I did not ride or lift at all for the last 10 days. I have completely spent that time focused on the wedding and reception and honeymoon. We slept about 9 to 10 hours a night and only went on relatively short walks (no more than an hour at a time). I'm pretty well rested now. I'm also well fed.
I've managed to gain 3 pounds in 10 days. I fully admit that I ate everything in sight, from the semi-bachelor party to the rehearsal dinner to the wedding reception to our private wedding dinner to lunch with our parents to all the places we ate in Vermont. I'm not surprised :-) My weight this morning was 187 pounds and 22.7% body fat. That's OK. It was totally worth it to have some great food and to hit the new 2012 training season (which starts tomorrow) well rested!
