Glens Falls, NY to Chittenden Brook Campground, VT

A few thoughts about Vermont:  The state appears to be very tidy.  Maybe it is arriving from New York.  The roads are in good shape, and the villages seem neat and freshly painted.  Vermonters must love to mow.  Why mow two acres when you can mow three?  Why three acres when you can mow five?  One thing they don't mow is the side of the road--better to let the wildflowers grow.

Everything in Vermont is picturesque, no more so that State Route 7A.  It takes you through Manchester.  But not very fast.  The speed limit through "downtown" is 15 miles per hour.  The highlight attraction in town is the American Museum of Fly Fishing.  Believe it.  Somehow, I skipped it.

I did go to another iconic Vermont museum, the Vermont Marble Museum.  You don't just happen by it.  You have to want to go there.  How?  You go to Rutland and turn left.  Its down the road a bit.  But you had better go soon, as I am not sure how long it will last.  When I was there they were offering a summer-long special of $1 admission (rather than the normal $7).  If it were to close it would be too bad because there are a lot of very nice exhibited and other features.  It offers an in-residence marble sculptor, who gladly works and chats in your presence.  The is the Hall of Presidents, which has marble reliefs of all 44 (actually 43 if you don't count G Cleve twice) of them.  A couple of examples:

I discovered that you need to take those pictures straight on, otherwise the distortions are weird.

Entrance to Vermont Marble Museum

Vermont marble has a distinguished place in American history.  It was mined starting in 1785.  According to the museum website:  "Vermont Marble Company, early in the 20th Century, was considered the largest U.S. corporation in the world"  Oh my.  Vermont Marble Company the started in 1880 by Redfield Proctor.  The museum, which must have been established by the company, is in the town of Proctor.  The company contributed marble to the Washington Monument, the United States Supreme Court Building, among many others.  A prominent contribution is the Tomb of the Unknown, and the museum has an extensive exhibit on its planning, building and installation.  Though the tomb was carved in Vermont, the marble came from Colorado.  Though there are also some mineralogical exhibits, the geology of marble is not the focus.  Most of the craftsmen appear to have been Europeans--Swedes and Ukrainians and Italians.  Very little marble quarrying is done here now, and the company is owned by OMYA, a Swiss industrial conglomerate.

Tonight was my first night of camping in a national forest campground.  Two things about the campground:  The limit of amenities are a picnic table and an outhouse--known as a 'vault toilet.'  The entrance road was seven miles of graded dirt.  Needless to say, I didn't have a lot of company.  But a can of chili beans was all I really needed.

Mileage: 130  Cumulative mileage: 3,335.