I love this thread! I’ve always wanted to go to New England in the fall. We don’t travel a lot, but one of these days…
(I’ll be communin’ with the hippies 
)
We’ll be wait’in - we’ll have the fire going and the ____ blazing.
Seriously, it is well worth the trip to VT in October. Well worth it indeed.
I’ll have to talk Mr. K into it. I just got him to agree to the Grand Canyon! First trip we’ve had in 5 years.
If you were there this weekend it’s likely as not we walked right past each other.
Burlington is a very . . . well, it’s a large college town (pop < 40,000, with a university with a pop of ~ 10,000). It’s also the cultural and economic center for the entire county, if not the state. It has a fair amount of ivory-tower liberalism, intellectual-do-good-ism, as well as a lot of independent types who want to do things their own way, whether that way is ‘the way my family’s always done it,’ or, ‘the way that’s best for the environment, man.’
People often forget that Burlington is the ‘urban’ and academic hub of an essentially rural and traditional state. That clash doesn’t always result in smooth sailing.
Just left the VT Pub and Brewery a half hour ago, where I had a few pints and an apple crisp with cheddar cheese. Yum!
Good to hear. We went for a few days back in August for a wedding, and loved it.
We’re going to visit those same friends for five days in the middle of October. They live in Burlington, and are firmly in the “college professors and diehard liberals” category. I’ve got my camera and my memory cards ready to go.
We’ve got a lot of places that have some of the attributes you mention. There are country areas with salt of the earth people, coastal areas with mid-life crisis yuppies, and other, more distant coastal areas with greying hippies. But probably the one closest would be the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. It’s close enough to be a bit of a commuter belt, but you’ve also got hippies, yuppies, poets, potters, Vietnam vets, old time “mountains people”, young families escaping the mortgage belt, and so on.
And all in a spectacular setting. I likes me the Blue Mountains. Was just up there yesterday, as it happens.
My wife was born in Rutland but raised in Brattleboro. She’s a Vermonter to the core! We got married there, in her old parish church, and honeymooned there too. Her parents still live in Brattleboro, and her brother and his family are in Montpelier. We go back every July 4th week for the big Independence Day parade in Brattleboro - straight out of Norman Rockwell, but with some granola-crunchy stuff too - and also celebrate either Thanksgiving or Christmas with my in-laws each year. We’ve found Columbus Day weekend to usually be the optimal fall leaf-peeping time.
I loVermont!
If we go this year, I’ll try to get some pictures for the out-of-staters. I’ve not had the issue with not being from around these parts; but that’s probably because I’m obviously an immigrant or a child of an immigrant already, so that part is already settled and the people who don’t like me for being an outsider never even talk to me. In general I find the people to be extraordinarily nice.
Heh. I just don’t think of Burlington as Vermont. It’s where we go when we need a little citiness, because it’s so big and there are restaurant and shopping choices and larger events there. But it’s too big to feel like Vermont Vermont.
Man, having a hard time getting my mind around the idea of a town of 40K being an entie state’s “Big City”!
Not that there’s anything wrong with it. Heck, at some point I imagine my wife and I will move someplace much less crowded. But heck, my smallish suburb has around 30K!
Wow - just wow!
I’ve lived in NYC, DC, Chicago…but I have become accustomed to my town of 2500. That Shelburne Road is a killer! 
Vermont’s cool, I kinda liked New Hampshire a bit more. They reminded me of home, only peopled with yankees. As for the racism, why would there be any? The whole state is white. Statistically 97% white according to the latest US census bureau. The lack of ethnic diversity was striking to me when I visited.
SIGH!!!
I love that place. Have you been to their annual Bobby Burns’ Dinner and Whiskey Tasting? I went both years I lived there. The second year is a bit hazy because my friend gave me most of her whiskey on top of my own…don’t do that, trust me. No matter how much you like scotch.
I loved the guy on “the Hempest” side of the market who had the bread. He was serving hot cinnamon bread and it was SOOOO good. We bought some fresh beets and Rugala and my wife bought some green pottery [again on ‘The Hempest’ side of the market] it’s a very cool mug…
In Vermont? Or New Hampshire?
Anyway, I’m not sure if you are whooshing me or what but I *am *non-white, so it does matter to me if people are racist or not, and in many so-called “country” and “don-home” areas, there’s a lot of subtle racism around.
I lived in New Hampshire and Vermont and I know what lokij is talking about. New Hampshire and Vermont are the whitest states in the nation and I wouldn’t surprised if that minuscule percentage of non-white people is further distorted by the demographics of the non-white population that is there like college students and professors and highly skilled professionals from abroad. I certainly never saw any poor black ghetto areas for example although there may be small ones in Southern New Hampshire.
When I first moved to Vermont, I came to the same conclusion that lokij did. There aren’t any minorities to speak of in the way other parts of the U.S. have to deal with so the people there don’t really have to think about it much at all.
Heh. I remember when I first realised that there were towns that weren’t cities in their own rights, just suburbs of other cities, that were larger than Burlington. What, you come from a town of 80,000 and that’s just a suburb of Boston!?!?
But, it’s pretty easy to get to Montreal (1.5 hours) or Boston (3.5 hours) from Burlington, or NYC at 7-ish hours (or heck, Toronto at roughly the same amount of time). Of course, that’s all if you live near the interstate.
I’ve seen the signs but never yet gone, which is sad since I love whiskey, and love that place (I’ve been there with a group of friends roughly 45 Mondays a year I’d say, since 2001, let alone other days of the week). Nothing like a pint on a quiet Monday night to start off the week.
Heh, true. But again, in that regard Burlington is very unlike the rest of the state. In the last ten years Burlington has welcomed a large number of refugees from Sudan, Bosnia (I know, still white), and Cambodia, as well as immigrants from Vietnam and elsewhere. The Burlington school district is having some ESL challenges these days. When I was in school (graduated high school in '98) about 20 miles from Burlington, there were three black families who had kids with whom I went to school. That proportion has increased dramatically in the last ten or so years.
Indeed! The smells are always awesome at the harvest market. I had just had breakfast before I went this weekend, so I just looked at the food longingly, as I told myself that I had already eaten enough that AM.
I vacation at least twice a year in a very specific area of Vermont, between Island Pond and Newport.
I’ve traveled all over the world, and this little slice of America is by far my favorite place in the world just to get away.
I can’t answer for bouv but I know there are few if any jobs for me in VT in my current field (biotech).
I suppose I could teach public school somewhere (shudder).
I kind of thought that’s what he was getting at but it still makes a difference when you yourself happen to be one of the minorities! No, there aren’t areas like that, certainly, but that doesn’t preclude racism by any means.