Before heading to the next destination we wanted to explore Bennington a bit. First went to the Park-McCullough House. A gorgeous Victorian Mansion built from gold rush era fortune by Trenor Park in 1864 at a cost of $75,000. An adorable miniature playhouse with working wood stove was built behind the house, as well as a large carriage barn and extensive gardens. The house is closed for renovations but we were able to tour the grounds and admire the lovely barn/carriage house as well as one of the first pre-fabricated sheds.
My photo doesn't depict the magnitude of this home with a third floor and extends way to the back. Here is another photo from the web:
And this is the adorable playhouse that I would live in. It had an ornate real working wood stove in it also.
And then the barn which was added on to throughout the years to accommodate the invention of cars!
The pre-fabricated garden house that one could order and have shipped directly--who knew Amazon was so efficient?
Then we wandered through the hills to the Old First Congregational Church, a 250 year old church with box pews. Why the boxes (and yes my thoughts sarcastically wandered to the subconscious analogy for the religious rhetoric contained therein)? The boxes were to help the families keep warm. They would use this little container with a piece of coal in it to take in the buggy on the trip to church and then brought the container into the box pew to keep warm. Church was an all day event, which included the children, and think, no Game Boys or cell phone apps to keep kids or adults busy (but kids will always be kids--or maybe it was an adult-- and there was plenty of carving of initials in the wood!).
Old Congregational Church
Where do you think you're going little boy???
Put your hunk of burning coal inside this and voila, instant heater!
There was also a lovely cemetery behind the church with Robert Frost's grave and many others of course, but Frost is the popular visit, adorned with coins which some attribute to a poem of his:
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Just down the road was the Bennington Battle Monument, a 300' obelisk commemorating the Battle of Bennington during the Revolutionary War. The battle was on August 17th (does the date ring a bell??) 1777 when the New Hampshire men defeated the British Army trying to capture a store of weapons and food maintained where the monument now stands. The monument was built in 1877 to commemorate the century anniversary of the battle.
We started to get hungry so headed for downtown only to get side tracked by the art galleries...loads of them, one in an old bank with giant chalkboard vault for patrons to draw. I however, was sidetracked by a row of banned books displayed as a piece of artwork with explanations why each book was banned. Most of the explanations as to why the books were banned were preposterous. Note to my children: please make an effort to read a banned book every once in a while, all the more reason to read it...NEVER should a book be banned. Yes, just another highlight in my radical psychologically marring (because there's always therapy) parenting style. Well that and letting my children watch scary movies, and eat too many Oreos (but other than that "practically perfect in every way"...at least that's what Mary Poppins told me).
I checked and lo and behold, there are several websites devoted to discovering banned books for all of the banned book wannabee readers out there. My favorite rebuttal about banning the Harry Potter books, "...people have worked tirelessly to ban the one book that made an entire generation of kids want to read books...". Cuz as the wise reading sage Carole Tyink always says, "you don't get hooked on reading, you get hooked on stories". Here's the list I particularly liked, the most ironically banned books:
This is my new mission, add one of these books (that I haven't already read) every year to my reading list, except Harry Potter since I've had my fill of sorcery from viewing all of the movies (great Thanksgiving tradition though, huh girls?).
All that browsing made me really hungry so we did the next best thing, finding a brew pub for lunch and beer, and what did we spy with our little eye...the Madison Brewery. And all I'll say is FFB (that's my new acronym for fantastic food and brew).
Stopped at the Heming Motor Museum (see how life balances itself out, little bit of art, (very...DK edit) little bit of cars) to see the vintage cars and motorcycles collected by the Ernest Hemmings from Quincy, IL. He started Hemming Motor News in 1954 with the first magazine 4 pages long and sold 500 copies. Currently the magazine has 175,000 subscribers and several different magazines that I just didn't commit to memory cuz they all looked the same to me, wheels, engines, and the word "muscle" interspersed way too much for magazines that have nothing to do with physical health.
Stopped at the Heming Motor Museum (see how life balances itself out, little bit of art, (very...DK edit) little bit of cars) to see the vintage cars and motorcycles collected by the Ernest Hemmings from Quincy, IL. He started Hemming Motor News in 1954 with the first magazine 4 pages long and sold 500 copies. Currently the magazine has 175,000 subscribers and several different magazines that I just didn't commit to memory cuz they all looked the same to me, wheels, engines, and the word "muscle" interspersed way too much for magazines that have nothing to do with physical health.
Awesome food truck!
The Packer tow truck.
Hope the fire is small...
Look, a car for Weebles!
The original, with spring loaded seat.
Of course we couldn't miss the main attraction for tourists in Bennington (of which we caught glimpses of wandering town) the 5 covered bridges that even have names, this is the Silk Road.
We viewed a couple more of the bridges then packed up Max and started to head South. Beautiful day for a drive with colors blazing on both sides. Went through the Berkshires in Massachusetts and a corner of Connecticut. Drove as fast as we could on the Taconic State Parkway for short bit even though it was for passenger cars only (what sign?) and made it to the Poughkeepsie Walmart to stay overnight. Walked through a fancy condo area (prices starting at $350K) located just behind a KFC, Sam's Club, and Walmart and Doug said he had a craving for KFC (walking through auspicious housing developments will do that) so bought KFC then hung out in Max. So much for Poughkeepsie, not smitten by this area. Overall attitude of customer service subsides into the realm of, "why are you bothering me, I just wanna do my job and get outta here", so we will be ready to roll by morning!
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