Roads Previously Not Taken

Our best day of the trip so far! We awoke feeling refreshed; the day dawned cooler and brighter, and off we went for adventures.

Today, Tuesday, sent us in the direction of the sweet town of Middlebury. We began with a visit to the Middlebury College Museum of Art, a little gem of a place with exhibits ranging from ancient Sumerian scarabs to cool modern whatever-they-ares. The Museum's entrance is flanked by two rows of Seussian "tepees" woven from tree branches. One can go inside them - cocoon-ish and very cool and fun.

The highlight of the visit was a show of the paintings of Fairfield Porter, an artist with Maine connections whose work wasn't all that familiar to us, but which we found we like very much. He leans a bit toward those big blurry Marsden Hartley lines we've always loved.

We left the show hungry (how is it viewing art makes us so hungry?), so headed in to Middlebury's town center, just the prettiest area built up around a river, with original mill buildings intact and housing lots of sweet shops and restaurants. We had a great lunch and guzzled down delicious homemade lime-aid at Jackson's on the River, on a day nice enough to sit on the patio and literally watch the river flow. Ahhh!

Afterward, J. indulged in a bit of made-in- Vermont shopping, while Dave shot pictures of the river's falls.

Aside: we learned that John Deere of tractor fame learned the blacksmith trade here in Middlebury.

 

 

 

 

We wound up the day with a hike on the Robert Frost Interpretative Wayside Trail, a big name for a cool little jaunt through the woods with our walking sticks.

This is a 1.5-mile looped path through a varied woods landscape, small bridges over a river, stretches of deep-woods darkness, meadows,  and throughout all are occasional benches where one can sit and gaze, and read accompanying, relevant postings of Frost's poetry: 

Whose woods these are I think I know,

his house is in the village, though.

He will not see me standing here

to watch his fields fill up with snow.

As we were ending the hike, we spotted a massed, fluttering clump of butterflies in a meadow - doing what?  Mating, congregating for prayer, sharing butterfly secrets?  As we approached, they ascended skyward; when we backed away, they quickly flitted back to their gathering site.

This is the kind of travel day the two of us most love.  A little art, good food, dalliances with nature, company and quiet, sun and dusky woods.  Health enough to enjoy it all, while the everything-else of our lives - all old and new concerns and frustrations - remain far, far in the background.

Every traveler, in the literal navigation of the miles to go before I sleep, seeks that blissful slow unfolding of the road and its sweet potential.

Comments

[Becky Driscoll]

Beautiful photos.

[ep]

i just love being able to travel with you guys & love the writing & the photos. this is a beautiful entry.