The weekend before the fourth of July, we headed up to Vermont for five days of camping near Bennington. When we left the D.C. area, it was almost 90 degrees and our air conditioning was broken. By the third night in Vermont, we were huddling in our sleeping bags enjoying the 38-degree weather. Vermont (state motto: You can never have too much firewood) has, for this reason, become one of our favorite summer vacation spots.

	"One could do worse than be a swinger of birches..." Robert Frost Click here to read the whole poem.
	This is the Bennington Congregational Church where Robert Frost was buried.
	Robert Frost's grave, and apparently many other Frosts, as well. Click here to see it up close.
	This is Paper Mill Bridge, one of Bennington's three covered bridges. We saw all three, and some in other towns, as well.
	Farmland between Bennington, in the southwest corner of the state, and Burlington, in the northwest corner. We drove up to Burlington (town motto: If it isn't groovy, it isn't us) in order to buy socks at the many sock stores there. I am not kidding. Really. If you lived in Vermont, you'd probably need a lot of socks, too.
	Coming home from Burlington, we took this picture of the Adirondack Mountains at a crossing for a ferry that takes you across Lake Champlain and into New York.
	Do not adjust your set. This is not an altered photograph. The sunset really was this color, right there at our campsite. See a bigger image.
	Here's Linda at our campsite, willing the imminent rain away. The second and third days we were there, it poured buckets. If you camp, you have to expect to get wet, and we did. The tent filled up nicely with water, too.
	We were lost. And then there was this covered bridge in front of us. This is Chiselville Bridge, somewhere near Arlington (town motto: Norman Rockwell slept here) and is perhaps or perhaps not on the way to Kelley Stand. Click here to read the sign over the bridge.
	The same day we were lost, we went on an "SUV hike". We drove on a very nice paved, scenic road to Arlington, and then hunted until we found Kelley Stand Road (and I use the term "road" loosely), a narrow, pitted dirt path that took us about 20 miles over the top of Glastonbury and Stratton Mountains. We were well rewarded by the views of the beautiful Green Mountain National Forest and very little civilization.
	This is more of what we saw on Glastonbury Mountain. The forest and creeks there look like they are straight out of a fairy tale. The road at the top was so far from civilization, that I actually said out loud, "This would be a terrible place to have a flat tire!" and then... sure enough, we heard a flapping on one of the back wheels. We had the bolt that was stuck in our still-inflated tire removed in the town of West Dover, once we were back in civilization.
	At the top of Glastonbury Mountain, we were very pleased to find a place called Grout Pond. This lake, miles from the nearest town, was virtually deserted save for an old caretaker forester named Al, who obviously had not spoken to anyone in many months. We gave him some conversation, admired his chipmunks, and appreciated the lake. We'll be back some year to camp there.
	On our last day in Vermont, we drove to Brattleboro (town motto: Hemp Capital of the World). This view, taken from the top of Hogback Mountain, was on the way. The mountains in the background are in New Hampshire (state motto: We want to be Vermont, but we're not quite hip enough.)
	At our campsite and all through Vermont, we were met with an abundance of wildflowers of every type.
	On one of our trips into Brattleboro, we bought this hot item at a groovy place called Beadniks. It's a finger puppet of the Hindu deity Ganesh. Ganesh is known in Hindu circles as the remover of obstacles, so we drove around Vermont with him on our dashboard for several days. We liked him so much we went all the way back to Brattleboro to get the full set of Hindu deity finger puppets. See the whole set.