Archive for the 'Summer' Category

September 1st

September 1, 2008 | Birds, Books, Douglas, Gardens & Flowers, General, Photo Contests, Summer, Travel, Vermont

Douglas at Shelburne Museum. More Shelburne pics.

Where has the summer gone? Tomorrow we pack up to go home after a month up here in Vermont. My husband has been going back and forth but Douglas and I have been here since August 2d with the dogs. I’ve been working all week while Douglas was in camp except for this last week when my mom came up, and I took a little time off.

We hit our usual haunts — VINS in Quechee and Shelburne Museum out near Burlington, and also checked out the Vermont Marble Museum in Proctor.

I used my telephoto lens at VINS and was amazed at some of the pictures of the raptors — if the bird was toward the back of the cage, the bars of the cage literally dissolve in the picture.

More pictures from VINS.

On Friday afternoon, we drove over to the Hathaway Farm in Rutland to do the corn maze.

Douglas and Dave, about 3/4 through the maze. More here.

Saturday looked a bit threatening weather-wise, a promise that was mostly delivered in the evening as we were driving through Rutland and the skies opened up. But we decided to take a chance and drive over to Fort Ticonderoga NY to see the King’s Garden, which was not open when we went on Memorial Day weekend.

Then we drove down the western side of Lake George to the town of Lake George and took a one-hour cruise on the paddlewheeler Minnie-Ha-Ha. Lake George looks like the typical honky-tonk beach town — think Hyannis, York Maine or Center Harbor on Winnepesaukee, including more mini-golf than you would ever want to play, but the cruise on the lake is very pleasant with quite a lot to see.

The boathouse is a smaller copy of the house.

Quite a bit of Victorian architecture along the lakeshore.

And of course the Adirondacks.

More garden photos,Ticonderoga’s park and waterfall, and Lake George.

Today, we may go over to Billings Farm; they do special activities on Labor Day that Douglas enjoys. Or I may just read my book. I find that I read more when I’m here than I do at home for some reason. Maybe I’m more relaxed. Right now I am reading the new James Bond novel Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks, and I just finished two novels in Alexander McCall Smith’s Isabel Dalhousie series, The Right Attitude to Rain and The Careful Use of Compliments. You may know his Africa-based series The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency but I find I enjoy the Dalhousie tales set in Edinburgh even more. The new one The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday is due out later this month.

I’m also looking forward to Brisingr (Inheritance, Book 3) by Christopher Paolini. While the second book in his trilogy was a bit disappointing, and the movie based on the first book Eragon was AWFUL, I’m hopeful that the conclusion of the tale will be better.

Bye, bye summer.

Technorati Tags: Vermont, Lake George, King’s Garden, Fort Ticonderoga, VINS, Shelburne Museum

Posted by Susan Getgood @ 10:40 am | Comments

Sightseeing Sunday

July 6, 2008 | Summer, Travel, Vermont

crossposted to New England Mamas

This week, SciFi Sunday is pre-empted. Instead we bring you Sightseeing Sunday

Yesterday was my birthday, and to celebrate we drove over to Burlington — about 80 minutes from the house in Barnard — to see the Mary Cassat: Friends and Family exhibit at Shelburne Museum. For dinner, we boarded the Spirit of Ethan Allen III for a dinner cruise on Lake Champlain. Then today, we went on the “Hidden Spaces, Unique Places” tour at the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller mansion in Woodstock. Last summer, Douglas, my mom and I had toured the mansion, but it always bugged Doug that we couldn’t see the 3rd floor. This tour resolved that dilemma. Plus Dave didn’t come last year so he’d never seen the mansion.

In order of events

I always enjoy Shelburne Museum because it has such a great mix of things that appeal to adults and children. This visit was no exception. Douglas patiently (mostly) waited while we enjoyed the Cassat paintings and then he had the opportunity to act as tour guide for his Dad on the Ticonderoga paddlewheeler.

Cassat was an exceptional artist. Possibly the best known American Impressionist painter and best known woman Impressionist, Whistler and Berthe Morisot notwithstanding. But what made this exhibit so exceptional was the way it highlighted the personal friendship between Cassat and Louisine Havemeyer, the mother of Electra Havemayer Webb, founder of Shelburne Museum.

The exhibit will be at Shelburne through October 26th and then at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC from November 21 through January 25, 2009. If you are near either place and you like Impressionist art, I urge you to check it out.

The dinner cruise on the Spirit of Ethan Allen III was fun. The food was perhaps just a notch above typical buffet food, although I would suggest having at least one fish entree that isn’t sauced, but the service was excellent. And the atmosphere — Lake Champlain at sunset — cannot be beat. I got a special treat as well. Douglas plotted with the DJ and sang Happy Birthday to me — microphone and all — during dessert. I imagine more than a few mums envied me for that brief moment – that my kid would do that for me. I had a few tears in my eyes.

Then today, we went on the Hidden Place, Unique Spaces tour of the Marsh-Billings Rockefeller mansion. They offer this tour about once a week, give or take, during the summer, and it is well worth it, although the regular tour is excellent as well.

On the Hidden Places tour, you see the third floor of the mansion, the servants’ quarters, a room in the Belvedere (basically the pool house, but what a pool house!) and the Bungalow, a cottage on the property, none of which are included in the regular house tour. I’d recommend either tour.

I do have pictures from all of the above, but the connection here is slower than at home so I’ll try to get them up tomorrow on Flickr.

Technorati Tags: Mary Cassat, Shelburne Museum, Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Park, Spirit of Ethan Allen III, Burlington, Vermont, Woodstock

Posted by Susan Getgood @ 9:15 pm | Comments

Up up and away

June 17, 2008 | Summer, Travel, Vermont

Last weekend we went to the Quechee Balloon Festival. The Festival runs from Friday evening through Sunday, and the balloons are scheduled to go up at 6pm and 6am every day. We went Saturday but the ascension was rained out so we decided to stay in Vermont and go Sunday evening.

Meant getting up at oh dark:30 on Monday to get Douglas to school on time but it was so worth it. Dave and I had been about 12 years ago, but I had forgotten how amazing it was to see so many balloons going up at once.

Here are some favorite pictures from the weekend. More on Flickr.