Travel Day: Catskills to Vermont

Well friends, yesterday turned out a lot less exciting than the previous days of our trip. We thought the drive from the Borscht Belt, the Hasidic part of the Catskills, to Waitsfield, VT, just down the mountain from Sugarbush, would take maybe a bit more than four hours. 

In fact, it took damn-near five. The drive wasn't bad, per se, but it went over quite a long, winding road. 

We wound up taking a bunch of local routes from the hinterlands near the Pennsylvania border up to I-87 near Coxsackie. From there, we took the interstate north past Albany and Saratoga, all the way up to Fort Ticondaroga. We then hung a right, slowly wormed our way down US-4 to Fort Ann, crossed the Champlain Canal along Route 22, and then headed further north via route 22A for what felt like a very long time. 

We stopped at this dinner just on the NY side of the VT border.
Sally said it reminded her of a scene from The Return of Dr. Necropolis.

I will note that 22A is at least a decent road with a 55 mph speed limit, so that part went quicker than we might expected. But still. Eventually, we turned right again onto Route 17, wound over the mountain and through a dozen hairpin turns, passed Mad River Glen, and came at last to the lodge. We are now here at the base of Mt. Ellen just outside Waitsfield. Whew!

We quickly got the car unpacked and hung around the lodge for a little while, but Sally soon started feeling restless. Yesterday wasn't her favorite day, not least because all those winding mountain roads made her a little carsick. So we went down into Waitsfield for a little walk down one of the local dirt roads and then headed out to Lawsons Finest Liquids.

View of the mountains from the dirt road just outside Waitsfield

At Lawsons. Note that Sally stole my hat.

For the beer enthusiasts among you, Lawsons brews Sip of Sunshine, perennially one of the best, gotta-have-it IPAs in the Northeast. But I didn't actually order that since it's now brewed actually in Stratford and therefore readily available at home. Instead, I ordered a taproom exclusive called Kingdom Trails. A terrific beer that's not quite as hop heavy as the Sip of Sunshine. Sally had the Scrag Mountain Pils, which is also great but also available back in Connecticut. In fact, we might even have some in our refrigerator at home. But she likes it, and Lawsons is definitely one of those places that really specializes in IPA, so...

If you're ever up here, I will also strongly recommend the Castlerock IPA. I think it's a Sugarbush exclusive. I definitely don't remember seeing it on the menu yesterday, but I suppose I could've missed it. Regardless, Castlerock is named for the expert peak on Sugarbush's Mt. Lincoln side. We've never actually skied it, but the beer is terrific.

We went to the grocery store after Lawsons, came back to the lodge, and wound up watching House of the Dragon using the movie screen and projector that I brought just for this purpose. I had to set all of that up inside, unforunately, because it rained most of last night, but it was still pretty cool. We also bought a local gin and had some outstanding gin & tonics last night. Good deal.

We're supposed to hike Mt. Mansfield today. That's the tallest mountain in Vermont. If you go to Stowe, it's the peak with the gondola on it.

We'll see how that goes.