VERMONT DAY 2

It was the day of our big cheese tour (sort of). Though the Cabot factory in Montpelier was closed, we discovered that the Cabot store in Quechee (about an hour south) would be open. So first we visited the Morse Farm and Maple Sugar Works which was located just 3 miles from Montpelier. I'm going to post more pictures of this in my next post, but when we arrived, it was pretty deserted (it was early in the morning and syurping had ended for the season). There's a self guided tour where you can check out the syrupmaking room and the trees, but we didn't wander too far. The paths were still quite wet from melting snow and it didn't make walking too easy. Anyway, we were more interested in the store where we were able to buy some real Vermont Maple syrup.After our purchase of maple syrup, we headed down to Quechee. It turned out to be a much bigger town than Montpelier and it's famous for a cool gorge. We arrived at the Cabot store in Quechee to find out that it was in sort of a shopping complex along with other shops, an awesome antique market and a toy/train museum (that wasn't open). First, we checked out the people who had setup outside in a sort of flea market. Then we went inside to try cheeses. I was disappointed to find that the Cabot store didn't have much information about cheese making or Cabot, but they did have tons of cheeses to sample.I stayed away from the stuff I could buy in Boston, but did get to try some of Cabot's reserve line. The fridge in back is stuffed with Cabot cheeses from huge blocks to little square. Tom picked up quite a few cheeses for his friend, Evan. I was also happy to see that they had a small fridge filled with cheeses from local cheesemakers that I had wanted to visit. I was able to buy some gouda for my sisters, camembert for Leah and cultured butter for myself. Tom also picked up some cheeses for himself and we came away with a huge haul of cheese. Luckily, I had thought of bringing along a cooler. Otherwise or cheese would've melted on such a hot day.

We spent some time looking at the antique dealers. There really take up a barn like space. No kidding. And there was some cool stuff. Awesome antique kitchen supplies, cast iron cooking implements and funny things like lunch boxes, comic books- basically anything you can think of. I was tempted to buy some cast iron stuff, but decided against it.

Our next stop was at Sugarbush Farm, another maple farm and also a cheesemaker. Luckily, Tom had been to Quechee before, so he thought of this place, and it was an excellent decision. Even though we had to drive up a long, unpaved windy road (they called it scenic, I say, be careful), it was worth it. We arrived at a farm and parked our car. Like Morse farm, you could explore the trees, see the operations. So we walked among the trees for a bit, checked out the cows and looks at the mapling shed.

We finally entered the store and found ourselves in a the tasting/cheese wrapping room. You can see from this pic, this is where the wrap the cheeses in wax and get them ready for shipping. We were greeted by a really nice woman who showed us the cheeses we could try. She kinda reminded me of myself on a good day, encouraging ppl to try stuff and giving them more info on the product. I think there were 14 of them. She offered let us to try all of them, but we thought that was too much. Since Tom was familiar with some of the cheeses, we started with the sage cheese. This was my favorite cheese of the day, with lots of sage flavor. It was suprising and different from anything I'd tried before. Tom tried a few more cheese. We picked up some blue for Leah and some smoked cheese for my sisters. We didn't try any maple syrup, since we already had plenty, so we went to check out the rest of the store, which was packed with more samples:Tom bought a few jars of unusual mustard, we picked out a bunch of cheeses and set off for our last destination, Grafton. It's a small historic town about an hour's drive away. When I mapped out this trip, I used Google maps. But as some of you know, Google gives you the shortest, though not usually the most economical route for driving. As we headed out for Grafton, we ended up on a long, unpaved, windy road for quite a while. It was not fun driving.

We arrived at the town hoping to find some lunch. But EVERYTHING in this little town was closed. Even the local town shop. (It was only 3:00) We were hungry and had driven nearly an hour to arrive at a place where there was no food and the closest town was another 30 minute drive away. We headed to our last stop, the Grafton Village Cheese Co., just a 1 minute drive away and set on a lovely part of the Saxton river. Luckily, it was open, but none of the cheese production was taking place (how not surprising). The store was deserted, except for one employee who ignored us. So we picked out a piece of cheese, cheddar bread, and some crackers and headed out to the picnic table.Tom asked me what my favorite part of the trip was, and this was it. Though the drive out to Grafton wasn't worth it, since we were already there, I greatly enjoyed snacking on my cheese bread with cheddar, sitting in the sunshine and watching the river flow by. It was peaceful, quite and warm.

It was the end of our trip. We came back with a ton of cheese and though we missed all the cheese production, I had a great time. Hopefully we'll be back in the fall, to see some leaves changing and some cheese being made.