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Post by madeline on Jul 3, 2016 10:35:18 GMT -5
We’re in Stowe, Vermont. We left Big Moose after breakfast on Thursday and got to Middlebury, VT a little after 1 and ate lunch at a place called Rosie’s. The Green Mountains are very scenic because there aren’t any big cities, just forests, farms and quaint little towns. We checked in at the Green Mountain Inn a little after 4. Lee and Julia have adjoining rooms in the main inn and the rooms are both beautifully decorated in Colonial style. The rest of us are staying in the Goat Loft Apartment, which is also decorated in Colonial style, but the bedrooms in the apartment are very bland. The lobby and dining room are also decorated like an old Colonial inn and the fireplace and wing chairs, which are shown in one of the pictures that Lee posted before our trip, look like those in the Old House on DS, like Kitty said in one of her comments. We had dinner at the hotel dining room, The Whip Bar & Grill. We had calamari and Prince Edward Island mussels for appetizers and Steak au Poivre with mushroom cognac sauce. We were tired from driving and went to bed early.
On Friday morning, we had breakfast at The Main Street Dining Room, which is also attached to the inn. Then we dropped off some things at the dry cleaner’s and drove south to Cuttingsville. It was a beautiful day, overcast and looking like it was going to rain. We met the lady from the historical society at 1 and she showed us through Laurel Hall, the haunted house built by John Bowman. After his wife and daughter died, he spent the rest of his life mourning for them and built the mausoleum across the road with a statue of himself kneeling outside the door. Lee, Julia and I had been there before, but Catherine and Kate hadn’t and they wanted to see it. There are some legends about the house, but some of them aren't true. It was said that Bowman had dinner prepared every evening and set out on the table with a place set for his dead wife, but the historical society lady said that wasn’t true, although he did do a lot of strange things. People hear things in the house, like a woman laughing, when no one else is there. Everyone says the woman is Jennie Bowman, his dead wife, but he didn't build the house until after she died. Bowman didn’t live in the house year round, it was his summer house and he did a lot of entertaining, so he must have gotten over his grief at some point. The woman haunting the house could be a former guest, or maybe a former lover. The house is in the Queen Anne style and has a square, central tower, but it also has some odd Elizabethan decoration on the exterior. The outside is impressive, but nothing like the interior, which has huge halls, pillars, a grand staircase with two big stained glass windows on the second floor landing and hand painted murals. The mausoleum is just as impressive, with statues, mirrors, fluted columns, statues of his dead wife and daughters and beautiful tile designs on the floor. We spent at least 2 hours in Cuttingsville and then drove back to Stowe. It was still cloudy and threatening to rain.
We got back to Stowe around 6, changed, and walked across the street to Harrison’s Restaurant. The menu there was basically the same as the one here at the inn, so we ordered Prince Edward Island mussels and calamari again, but instead of Steak au Poivre, we had filet mignon with rosemary potatoes. Afterwards, we came back and played cards and talked while Dark Shadows DVDs played on the TV.
Yesterday, we had eggs benedict in the dining room and went to our appointed spa day at Snowflake Mountain Resort & Spa. We had the usual manis/pedis, massages, facials, make-up, etc., which lasted from 11 until around 3:30. Julia and Lee were finished about a 30 to 40 minutes before the best of us because they don't use nail polish and we had to wait for our nails and toes to dry. The makeup girls were a little shocked when we showed them our DS character photos so that they would know how to make up our eyes because in the 60s, eye make-up was different from today. We told them about the Dark Shadows Festival and they assumed we were on our way to the Festival. After we left the spa, we came back to the inn and dressed for dinner at the Trapp Family Lodge, which is about a 10 minute drive from the inn. We all love German food, so we had weiner schnitzel, spaetzel and Trapp Family Lodge Brut. It was my turn to drive, so I had only 2 glasses at dinner, but we bought two bottles at the brewery to bring back to the inn.
This morning is sunny, not Dark Shadows weather, and we had brunch at the inn. Julia had pancakes, but the rest of us had eggs benedict again because the syrup up here is runny and gets the pancakes all soggy. It’s not like the cane syrup we have down South. This afternoon we’re going to drive to Montpelier, the capital of Vermont, which is about 30 minutes away, and visit Green Mount Cemetery, which is haunted, and then drive around and look at the old houses and other buildings.
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Post by pat on Jul 4, 2016 11:11:22 GMT -5
Maddie: You skipped Herkimer. Did you visit the courthouse and the old jail?
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Post by madeline on Jul 7, 2016 14:48:43 GMT -5
Maddie: You skipped Herkimer. Did you visit the courthouse and the old jail?
Oops! On Wednesday, the 28th, it was cloudy and overcast most of the day, but it never rained. We drove down to Herkimer from the Big Moose Inn, which took about an hour and 45 minutes. We first visited the old Herkimer County Courthouse, which is now part of the sheriff's office, where Chester Gillette was tried and convicted. The actual boat was brought into the court room for the trial, but it later mysteriously disappeared and after that, people saw the apparitions of Chester and Grace Brown in the boat in and near the courthouse, with Chester rowing and Grace with a sad look on her face. Chester’s lawyer, Albert Mills, is also said to have been seen walking around in the old courthouse. After the courthouse, we went to the old jail, where Chester was held. It is closed to the public for repairs, so when we were making plans, we had to contact the Friends of Herkimer County and make a donation to have someone meet us and take us through the building. We saw the cell where Chester was held, which became haunted after he was electrocuted and men locked in that cell would wake up screaming at night and say there was someone in the cell with them. Finally, the jailer stopped using that cell.
We then walked across the street to the historical society, which is located in the Suiter Building, a fantastic old stone Victorian mansion, with an octagonal tower and beautiful woodwork inside. No one ever lived in the house. Suiter was a doctor and used it for his office and library. A rocking chair belonging to Roxalana Druse is in one of the historical society’s exhibits. She forced her nephew to shoot her husband and then she beat him to death with the butt of an ax. When he was dead, she chopped him up with the ax and she and her daughter burned the pieces. Her defense was that her husband abused her and refused to support his family, but she was convicted and hanged in 1887. The hanging was botched and instead of the fall breaking her neck, she strangled to death. Witnesses were so horrified from watching a woman die that way that New York stopped hanging people and got an electric chair.
We had dinner early that night at the Big Moose Inn. We were starving and ordered 2 Charcuterie Boards as an appetizer and we all had roast duck. We packed and went to bed early, so that we would be rested for our drive to Vermont.
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Post by madeline on Jul 7, 2016 22:24:22 GMT -5
Sunday morning (the 3rd) was sunny, not Dark Shadows weather, and we had breakfast at the inn again. Julia had pancakes, but the rest of us had omelets and toast because the syrup up here is runny and gets the pancakes all soggy. It’s not like the cane syrup we have down South. In the afternoon, we drove to Montpelier, the capital of Vermont, which is about 30 minutes away, and visited Green Mount Cemetery, which is haunted by the ghost of a little girl and has a statue that is said to bring bad luck. We then drove around and looked at the old houses, including Redstone, which is owned by the state and employees say is haunted. We had to wear comfortable shoes for our cemetery hike and then change back into dress shoes for dinner at J. Morgan’s Steakhouse in Montpelier. Like everywhere else that we went in Vermont, there were Prince Edward Island mussels and calamari on the menu. We had stuffed Portabello mushrooms and porterhouse steaks with peppercorn sauce.
On Monday, the 4th, we had breakfast at the inn, as usual, and some people with kids overheard us talking about going to Emily’s Bridge, which is haunted, and asked us if they could meet us there and if we would tell them about the haunting. We agreed and they met us at the Gold Brook Bridge. The covered bridge is spooky and it’s said that Emily, who committed suicide by hanging herself from the rafters, still haunts it and can be malicious at times. After the bridge, we went to CC Putnam State Forest, which was nearby and walked a 1-mile trail that passed by a waterfall. The couple with kids met us there, too. The kids were curious and asked a lot of questions, which we had to answer because their parents didn’t bother to learn anything about the area before deciding to spend the 4th of July weekend there. They were from New York. That night, we had crab cakes for appetizers and grilled rack of lamb at the inn. We went to bed earlier than usual to get up early for our long drive to the coast of Maine.
On Tuesday morning, the 5th, we picked up dry cleaning, left Stowe around 9:45 and got to Winthrop, ME around 1:30. We had lobster rolls at Sully’s Bar and Grille. Winthrop’s claim to fame is that it has the only freshwater lighthouse in Maine, the Ladies Delight (or Cobbossee) Light on Lake Cobbosseecontee. It’s on a little island out in the lake. It began getting cloudy around the time that we got to Augusta and we took a highway through what seemed to be wilderness. There were a few little unincorporated places, but it was mostly just forest and farms. We arrived at the Asticou Inn around 5:30 and checked in. It’s a lovely old hotel with shingle siding and the lobby is decorated in an old-fashioned resort style. Our rooms are fine. My room is on the 3rd floor, the one with the wallpaper that Jason said was hideous, but the room really has a lot of character. Catherine and Kate’s room is across the hall looking out onto the front lawn. Their room, which is really more like a suite, has a subdued green and cream wallpaper, nothing like mine, and is decorated in green and blue. They also have a sofa in their room. Lee and Julia have a 2-bedroom suite across the street in the Cranberry Lodge and the wallpaper in their rooms is also in light colors. They also have a kitchenette. We changed for dinner and got a round table right next to the huge windows looking out onto the bay. The sun was setting and the water view was breathtaking. We had steamed mussels, I don’t think that they were from Prince Edward Island, steamed lobsters and creme brulee for dessert. We don’t always have dessert, but we were starving.
Yesterday, we slept late, had lobster quiche and popovers (popovers are the restaurant’s specialty) for lunch, dropped off dry cleaning, did laundry and drove around sightseeing. We would have enjoyed our sightseeing more if it had been dark and overcast. We had dinner reservations at the Union River Lobster Pot in Ellsworth. We had skewered shrimp, bacon wrapped scallops and baked stuffed lobster. We went to bed early again so that we could get up in time to drive to Bar Harbor, which is 11 miles from here, for our 3-hour lighthouse cruise which left Bar Harbor at 9:30.
This morning, we had popovers for breakfast. The weather was wonderful, overcast and foggy, and the boat took us past the lighthouses at Great Duck Island, Egg Rock, Winter Harbor, Baker Island and Bear Island and we learned the stories about them. It was cold, I don’t think it got up to 60 all day, but we all wore sweaters and took our raincoats, which we put on shortly after we left shore. We got back to shore around 12:45 and had lunch at Route 66, a nostalgic restaurant in downtown Bar Harbor. We had hamburgers and what the menu said was 50's-style milkshakes. We were tired from the cruise, so we just hung around the inn this afternoon, then got ready for dinner at Galyn’s, a seafood restaurant, where we had the Fisherman’s Feast, which was a platter of lobster, shrimp, scallops, steamed mussels and crab cakes.
Tomorrow, we’re going to visit the garden near the inn and have dinner at the Bar Harbor Inn. We’re hoping the gloomy weather will continue.
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