Vermont Day 3: A Drive in the Country

If you've been stopping by this blog for a while now, you probably know me well enough to know my favorite thing to do is drive in the country.

I've been out in beautiful snow storms. 

I've eaten ice cream with the cows who gave the milk.

I've even been swimming in the corn fields.

So when everyone decided we would spend our third day in Vermont swimming in an almost 100-year-old swimming hole full of huge boulders and who knows what else, I heard the country calling me! 

After I loaded my cameras in the car and dropped everyone at the quarry, I turned on my favorite playlist, rolled down my windows and went to my happy place for a couple of hours.

I'm a sucker for a great name. I mean, who wouldn't want to explore roads with names like 7 Hills Road or Roaring Brook Road. They just beg to be explored.

So I was giddy when I followed the road next to this beautiful place, The Barrows House Inn and Restaurant on Hwy. 30 in Dorset.

The road was called Dorset Hollow Road. 

(If it was in my home state of Tennessee, we would call it Dorset Holler Road!)

I followed this road until I came to a fork (quite appropriate for the state where Robert Frost was named poet laureate in 1961).

When faced with the decision to go left or right, I stopped in the middle of the road and looked down one as long as I could. It was called Upper Hollow Road. Weighing my options and fearing it might lead me to the top of some mountain, I took the other, as just as fair. It was called Lower Hollow Road,

and it was begging to be explored!

Almost every road in the state of Vermont follows along some river or creek or stream, and this road was no exception.

And almost every house on my drive had a view of the mountains 

or a beautiful barn

 or a stone wall

or a unique fence  

or  grazing creatures of some kind

   

or quaint little touches that just made me want to stay a little longer!

And this road even had a bit of history to it.

This little spot reminded of Robert Frost's poem Birches and the time my daddy told me about riding the trees when he was a kid. I think of him every time I read Frost's poem. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Lower Hollow Road did not disappoint. 

I'm glad I chose the road I did!

I stored the images deep where memories provide spaces to linger when life weighs a little too heavy, and I know I will visit often. 

As for the Upper Hollow Road, I kept it for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I ended my journey at this quaint little store overlooking the village green in Dorset, the Dorset Union Store. 

They have been selling "necessities & frivolities" for over 200 years and are listed on The National Register of Historic Places. 

I was only inside for a second when I got the call that my clan was ready to be done at the quarry. I had just enough time to grab an ice-cold Dr. Pepper and eye the amazingly enormous cookies in big glass jars at the front counter. (I'll have to go again some day to enjoy those!)

Dorset is just a small village, and I didn't think we would actually get to experience it, but I'm so glad we did. It made all the difference!

(Words in italics are from the poems, The Road Not Taken and Birches, by Robert Frost.)