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With the whole day to explore Vermont’s capitol and Lake Champlain, and the forecast for more record-breaking temps, we head straight for the water to hike along the lake.  The trail was leafy in spots and beachy in others and we especially enjoyed the prevailing breeze off the water. It felt so good to stretch our legs after clocking so many hours in the car that we spent more time hiking than we’d originally planned. According to my Fitbit, we walked a total of nine miles this day, though not all during our morning sojourn. After our hike, we found a local coop for picnic sandwiches and opted to eat in the air-conditioned cafe since it was hot away from the lake, again pushing ninety degrees.

Linda and our guidebook recommend the Shelburne Museum just a few miles up the road for an afternoon excursion.

To call this forty-five acre property a museum seems misleading. It’s more like many museums spread out across the rolling hillside. There are thirty-nine buildings, twenty-five of which have been moved to the site, along with an old steamship, The Ticonderoga, which is dry docked on the lawn. The buildings are filled with a mind-boggling variety of art, Americana and collections. The guidebook tells me that its founder and brainchild was Electra Havemeyer Webb (1888-1960) who inherited a large collection of French Impressionist paintings from her mother and then got interested in collecting collections. Part of Webb’s inherited fine art collection is housed here on site in a Greek Revival building. This collection is extensive and includes paintings by Monet, Manet, Courbet and Mary Cassatt.  Also notable is that the interior of this building is an exact reproduction of Webb’s Manhattan apartment which her children built as a memorial to their mother after her death. Weird, right?

One building housed the museum’s extensive permanent quilt collection along with a special show of Amish quilts. They were gorgeous—detailed and colorful. My favorite was a predominantly yellow quilt made by a ninety-one year old woman as a wedding gift for her granddaughter.

We thoroughly enjoyed our tour of the Ticonderoga. In this heat, I wished I’d been on the water instead of on the lawn and that the ship’s the dining room, all period china and crystal, had been serving cold beverages. We made due with cold bottled water from the gift shop after taking in the Sweet Tooth exhibit—paintings and sculpture, photographic art and video installations all on the subject of dessert. My favorite was this one featuring twinkies.

With only two hours to spend in this amazing place, we experienced only a small sampling of everything offered. That said, we saw some fabulous impressionist paintings, western art and all kinds of beautiful pieces.

Museum docents waved us out when they closed the doors at 5:00 and we headed straight for the local ice cream shop for happy hour craving something sweet after drooling over the desserts depicted in so many delicious formats.

If you go, plan to spend at least half a day here, or maybe two, to do it justice.

After a great night in Lenox including an amazing dinner of duck breast in salted caramel sauce (right?) at the Alta Bistro and a comfy bed at the Birchwood Inn, we take a brief sojourn to the Norman Rockwell Museum. I’m not expecting much but the setting is gorgeous (miles of rolling hills) and there’s a special exhibit of Andy Warhol with Norman Rockwell. The juxtaposition of these two artists surprises me. They are contemporaries after all and more than once chose the same subjects: Jackie Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe to name just two. There’s also an exhibit of Andy Warhol’s nephew whose illustrations are playful and amusing—several show his family visits to his famous uncle in New York.

But on this trip, the road’s the thing so we hop back into the car for the main event: driving north into Vermont. Our destination for the next two days is Burlington— Vermont’s capitol, it’s largest city and home to the University of Vermont. The drive is again quite beautiful, rolling hills, leaves starting to turn from green to gold and red. It’s still hot and the air conditioning is still on high for this trip. We cross the border into Vermont and I’m struck by the welcoming roadside rest area. There’s green grass and Adirondack chairs and pots of geraniums still in bloom. I feel welcomed.

We arrive in Burlington and pull into the long driveway of an old Victorian house perched high on the hill up from Lake Champlain and several blocks from the center of town. This is Made Inn Vermont, the B & B where we have a booked a room for two nights. Our hostess greets us in the driveway with hands on hips and a huge smile like we’re her long lost friends. She doesn’t look like your average B & B proprietor. She’s dressed in a tight plunging black top over black pants, her black hair touches her shoulders and her red lipstick accentuates her clear pale skin. She is still beautiful and knows it. Her name is Linda and she’s excited to give us the tour of her old Victorian house. It really is something else—a kind of retro sixties throw back kind of place. There are old rock and roll posters, lots of vinyl records in the common areas and we hear Billy Joel’s upbeat piano plinking from the speakers. Old guitars line the hallways and fill the nooks. Linda shows us the hot tub in the back off the kitchen while offering to make us margaritas, pour us an ice cold local beer or glass of wine while her guy takes our bags up the stairs to our room. As it’s still ninety degrees in the shade, I go for the margarita and my husband takes a beer.

The room is ridiculous and fun, all done up in black and white with red heart-shaped balloons on either side of the bed. The opposite wall is one huge blackboard filled with graffiti. Linda flips a switch and the platform of the bed lights up like a lava lamp. The desk looks like any other hotel desk until Linda opens the top to reveal the turntable. My husband is already flipping through the vinyl records in here while Linda gives us the rest of the information we need: breakfast between nine and ten, cupola up the stairs with great views of the lake and the bathroom across the hall is ours alone. She gives us the keys and leaves us alone to take a deep breath and consider whether we’ve just booked the best place ever, or whether we’ll regret this in the morning. But the bed is comfortable and the margarita is delicious and the room is coolly air-conditioned. It’s a good place.

Later, we walk down the hill to a wide pedestrian mall filled with white lights hanging in the trees and restaurants on either side, all with outdoor seating. We find an Italian place and have pizza and cold Pinot Grigio with a Caesar salad. We are happy tourists.