Day 59: Burlington, VT to St. Johnsbury, VT

Yesterday we enjoyed a day in Burlington. The town features a pedestrian mall that puts our own Pearl St Mall to shame! After perusing the mall for a few hours and checking out the sidewalk sales, we headed to the opposite end of town to tour the Magic Hat brewery. The best part of the brewery tour was the sample room where you could get a 3 oz sample of any beer you wanted and as many samples as you want too!

So after a good rest day, we were up early to start our ride to St. Johnsbury. The town of St. Johnsbury is on the eastern border of Vermont, directly across from Burlington. Its pretty amazing that we can ride from one border of the state to the other in one day - and we are at the wider end of the state!

Today's ride would take us past the Ben & Jerry's ice cream factory and the Cabot's Cheese Creamery Factory. We were tempted to stop at the Cabot's Factory but it was a 5 mile ride out of our way and all uphill. As for Ben & Jerry's, I did the factory tour about 20 years ago when we came out to Stowe for a family ski trip. All I can remember about the tour was that we were the only ones there and we had about 30 ice cream samples to gobble up (and we did!) Marc said he's not a fan of B&J's so we passed that tour as well.

Northern Vermont is gorgeous! We enjoyed a scenic ride along HWY 2. The towns in Vermont are quite small. We rode through Montpelier, the capital, and we were amazed by the smallness of the town. We turned a corner and all of a sudden there was the gold domed capital- right on the edge of the woods! The town wasn't much more than a few main streets with shops and then we were back out of town and into the woods. Most of the towns we encountered on our route today were tiny hamlets tucked into the tight valleys between the hills.

We arrived in St. Johnsbury around 4 PM and I was a bit nervous that we would not have a room to stay in. I spent about an hour online last night trying to book a room at one of the three motels in town. I finally gave up after spending 20 minutes on the phone with priceline, only to have them tell me that there were no more rooms available. After my ordeal with priceline, I tried booking a room directly with one of the motels but never got a confirmation email. If we didn't have a place to stay in this town, we'd have to ride at least another 15 miles to the next town.

Luckily the hotel had our reservation and we are now enjoying a beautiful room at the Fairbanks Inn. This hotel sits on the former site of the Fairbanks Scale Factory (thus the name). We have a newly remodeled room with a King Size Bed and Balcony overlooking a grassy hillside and pool. Now that our hotel rooms have gotten nicer - I doubt that I'd ever want to go back to any of the seedy motels. Plus, the cheap motels are harder to find out East - believe me I am still searching for the cheapest night's stay but they are getting harder and harder to find.

The town of St Johnsbury is exactly what you'd imagine a quaint Vermont town to be. Its full of beautifully restored homes, churches and buildings all dating back to the 1800's. The Fairbanks family, who owned the scale factory, was quite generous to the town and donated money for many beautiful buildings. I was especially excited to discover that St. Johnsbury is the home of the largest Maple Sugar Candy Factory in the world. YUM! I told Marc that stopping for a factory tour is a must! Something tells me that he's not as excited about the tour as I am.


Last but not least, I saved room for dessert tonight and I wasn't disappointed. Marc and I dined at Christie's Bistro. The Friday night fish fry left us both a bit hungry so we shared a healthy slice of New York Style Cheesecake with a light drizzle of pure maple syrup. It was one of the best slices of cheesecake's I have ever tasted. The syrup added just the right amount of sweetness without being overpowering. Delicious!

Marc's stats:

78 miles

14 mph avg