St Johnsbury

Sunday was a visit to St Johnsbury with Ranger Lisa and her husband, Michael...

Nice drive up I-91, the further north the taller the mountains following along the Connecticut River.
We arrived little after noon, the Fairbanks Museum our primary agenda. Thaddeus Fairbanks was the inventor of the Fairbanks-Morse scale and grandfather to Franklin Fairbanks, who founded the museum in 1889.

But first lunch at Anthony's Diner...

I had a friend egg and onion sandwich on homemade bread, yummo.

Have learned to ask about the tea, most places use instant, but Anthony's actually brewed their own.

 Love the little, local diners, and there are tons of them in Vermont to choose from, most of them have excellent food.


Back at the Museum, we purchased tickets for the planetarium show and museum admission.

Built to house his vast collections of just about everything... over 175,000 objects ranging from Egyptian mummies, Japanese Samurai uniform and sabers, fossils, minerals, insects, a complete Vermont herbarium...

mammals of the North Country - polar bear, grizzly bear, beaver, otter, fisher cat, porcupine, bobcat, lynx, wolf, coyote







And birds... hundreds, maybe thousands of birds from all over the world in enormous glass display cases, carefully taxidermied by W.E Balch in the late 19th century. Some were a little worn, due to less than perfect display cases, but very impressive. His collection even included Carolina Parakeet and Passenger Pigeon.

The Spitzer planetarium, the only public planetarium in the state was added in 1961 and updated last year. Much smaller than the Blakemore Planetarium in Midland, but housing a state of the art digital projector and a very enthusiastic astronomer to provide an excellent, entertaining tour of the evening sky.

The architecture of the building was worth the visit by itself even without the planetarium and the exhibits.

But, our afternoon excursion wasn't finished... a stop by Maple Grove Farms and a tour of the sugar house made mouths water. The smell was heavenly and the sample of Maple Candy was melt in the mouth delicious.

Littleton NH, just across the Connecticut River is home to Chutters, candy store extraordinaire...

Grab a bag and fill it from any of the jars and pay by the pound!
I filled my bag with moose-heads and maple leaves.

 Alvin opted for the fudge counter, buying dark chocolate fudge pralines for me and sugar-free turtles for himself.

If all that wasn't enough, we stopped by Bishop's Homemade Ice Cream

for banana splits and sundaes, started in 1976 and still yummy.
Always helps to have locals as tour guides.









Michael made a quick stop by work, Pete and Gerry's Organic Eggs, to check the refrigeration units on the semi-trailers awaiting unloading on Monday and picked up 2 dozen eggs for me. We've enjoyed fresh eggs since we arrived. All the hens are Marans, heirloom hens that originated in France and certified humanely raised, the eggs are brown with golden, yellow-orange yolks.

Not only do they taste delicious, the packaging is also creative, clear plastic made from recycled water bottles.