A few weeks ago, some of my friends from DC flew up to Vermont for the weekend, so Frank and I drove up to see them. I was so excited because I was dreaming of taking photos of bright red maple leaves covering the Vermont hills, even though we were going a little past peak foliage season. When we got there, I was so disappointed because it rained all day Saturday and Sunday was too windy to go hiking. And I did not see a single maple tree with lush red leaves! Even though our plan to spend the whole weekend outdoors was scrapped, we still had lots of fun exploring Burlington and our trip quickly revolved around the local food. Vermont is filled with dairy farms, maple houses, cider mills, and so much more, so we ended up taking more factory tours than I’ve ever taken in my life (including Ben and Jerry’s, which will be featured in the next post)! Almost everything I eat over the weekend was tasted really fresh, and I love how the locals are so proud of their food that all the restaurants we went to mentions “locally grown in Vermont” in their menu whenever they can.

Frank was really nice and did all the driving, which leave me free to take pictures from inside the car.

We planned on hiking near Mt. Mansfield, the highest point in Vermont, only to find that there were no more leaves!  Maybe I’ll come back in the winter for skiing.

Since it was raining, we decided to stay dry and visited the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center. It’s a fairly small aquarium, but they had lots of different frogs and turtles. We were lucky to catch a special tour of baby soft-shelled turtles, which was held in a special room that’s not open to the public. The baby turtles in the photo are four weeks old and are endangered, so the aquarium staff raise them over the winter where they become the size of four-year old turtles. Then they are released back into Lake Champlain.

Here’s a view of Lake Champlain.

Inside the Lake Champlain Chocolates store. They make amazing chocolates, and my jaw dropped upon entering the store when I saw the mouth-watering caramel apples and a over dozen different types of fudge! I was really disappointed to find out that their factory tours are only given M-F, but they do give out chocolate and hot chocolate samples in the store.

Next stop: Cabot cheese. They have so many different varieties of cheeses! I probably sampled close to twenty of them, and I don’t think I tried them all! I really enjoyed their extra sharp cheddar. They also make interesting specialty cheddars like “hot buffalo wing cheddar” and “horseradish cheddar.”

Now for beverages. Right now is apple season, so at Cold Hollow Cider Mill we got to see the workers use an old-fashioned cider press (I found out later on their website that they make cider year round). The leftover apple bits are sent to local farms and fed to livestock.

Finally, we visited a microbeer brewery called the Magic Hat Brewing Company. I was a little confused when we pulled up because the first thing I saw was this huge metal tower, and I didn’t believe this was a brewery until I went inside.  The facility is decorated with lots of groovy modern art, and they have both guided and self-guided tours of the factory. Beer drinkers will love this place because you can sample nine different beers at the bar. I love their beer tap handles!