Heavy Rainfall followed us from Cooperstown all the way through New York’s North Country and the wiper blades that hadn’t been used in weeks began to disintegrate with each rapid swoosh. All that we could really appreciate of the soggy landscape were passing signs for places we had heard of and never been. Saratoga Springs prompted a music trivia query. “Saratoga, Saratoga, who sang a song about Saratoga?” I asked before googling the answer which was Carly Simon and the song was “Your So Vain”. Alternating messaged flashed from the onboard information center for “Change Fuel Filter” and “Change Oil”. We were almost two thousand miles into our journey and the truck was letting us know that it, like us just needed to get to our Campsite where we would have a week to focus on maintenance, housekeeping and rest. We slipped unceremoniously across the border into Vermont and followed route 4 up into the blustery mountain pass to Killington Ski Area before descending to Woodstock and the Queechie KOA. After all the planning, all of the years of saying “one of these days we will visit New England” we were finally there.
We woke up that first morning in Queechie to high humidity resulting from the rains that had then moved on. Record high temperatures were forecast for the duration of our six night stay. It didn’t take long to come to the realization that a week was far too little time to explore the area and we made a list of things we wanted to do and see while there. Services and Supplies were located just a few miles east of our campground in Lebanon New Hampshire. There we would re-provision and scavenge the countryside for covered bridges and waterfalls. I was able to find a Jiffy Lube where I could get the oil changed but they were unable to change the fuel filter on the f450. I picked up a fuel filter at a local auto part store so we would have it on hand.
Being the literature and movie geeks that we are, a day trip was on tap to the tiny village of Holderness on the shore of Squam Lake, New Hampshire to see where “On Golden Pond” was filmed. It was Sunday and there was literally no place to park a dually so we passed on the the shops and restaurants and drove up the shoreline to the Rattlesnake Mt. Trailhead. The hike was a relatively easy one mile ascent to the top where lofty views of the lake made it easy to imagine the character Norman Thayer casting a line from his boat hoping to hook old Walter the Trout.
Other outings during our short week in Vermont included an afternoon drive through the countryside to the quiet village of South Royalton, a visit to the family owned Sugarbush Farm where maple syrup and cheese are made and of course we explored the historic village of Woodstock.
