A great day for a festival...or anything else!

Lake Sadawaga

Newfane, Vermont Heritage Festival

Can anyone play "Moonlight in Vermont"?

Some trees are yellow, some are red. All of them are beautiful.

View from Hogback Mountain

On this type of trip, it is not always the ultimate destination of the day that is the most important, but often it is the scenes and adventures along the way that make the best memories. Today was one of those days.


Today’s destination was the Heritage Festival in Newfane, Vermont, so our day-trip plans included another portion of southern Vermont. It was an absolutely gorgeous day…the kind of weather they use when making photos for the Vermont public relations leaflets. There were many more vehicles on the road today…a tribute to the long Columbus Day weekend. Near Whitingham, VT we stopped for a closer look at a memorial to Mormon leader, Joseph Smith. The memorial got minimum attention once we discovered that close by was beautiful Lake Sadawaga, ringed with colorful foliage in the morning sunlight.


Several miles south of Newfane we got caught in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Fall festivals are extremely popular in this area, and traffic congestion is the norm on the two-lane roads in the area of any festival. Once we arrived in Newfane, the bumper-to-bumper traffic became body-to-body people.


Newfane is such a small village that we wondered how many miles out of town we would have to park, but as luck would have it, someone pulled out of a parking place right beside the courthouse just as we arrived in the area. The festival was held on the village green, in front of the white-steepled community church and the white-steepled courthouse. We ate lunch while at the festival, viewed the craft exhibits and listened to the pinkin’ and grinnin’ from various local performers who used the courthouse steps as a make-shift stage. Every few minutes someone gave his personal rendition of the local favorite, “Moonlight in Vermont”.


Not only were there festivals in several of the towns, but also everywhere we turned there were signs advertising “tag sales”. In the south we call these “garage sales”, but the term “tag sale” gives the thought of selling junk a little higher class. Martha Stewart uses the term “tag sale” from time to time, so I guess her use of the expression helps elevate the status of a tag sale.


We drove to Grafton, stopping for samples at the Grafton Cheese Company. We even made a purchase of some Grafton cheese to much on.


As we headed back toward Massachusetts we drove for several miles along Highway 9 in southern Vermont, which is known as the Molly Stark Trail. The vistas along this highway were beautiful, and we stopped at the highest point on the drive for a get-out-and-look view. (The highest point on the Molly Stark Trail is at Hogback Mountain, making one wonder why such a lofty view would be named for an overweight animal that wallows in the mud. Go figure.) It seemed that every leaf-peeper in all of Vermont had the same idea at that exact time, but we managed to snap a photo or two from Hogback Mountain without another tourist stepping into the picture.


We are back at Hancock tonight. This is our last night in this location. Very early tomorrow morning we pack the car and head for northern Vermont. This has been a great place to stay, but we are looking forward to new adventures in another area. What a great week we have had.