Vermont, the home of Bernie Sanders and syrup. That’s all I knew about the state until I drove most of it (which takes no time at all, by the way).  My plan was to drive down from the White Mountains (in New Hampshire) and camp in the Green Mountains (in Vermont). If there weren’t signs you’d have no idea you were in a different state. New Hampshire and Vermont look the exact same. Small. old, towns dot the countryside and there is green everywhere.  The main difference from the Green and White mountains was, well everything.

The Green Mountains look like hills compared to the White Mountains. Also, driving through the White Mountains allowed you to stop and hike at various points. Driving through the Green Mountains allowed you to see people’s farms.  US 7 goes right through the Green Mountains, but there weren’t any trails to hike that didn’t require some real drive times to get to. It was odd, but I was reminded that this was a national forest, not a national park.  The difference being we’re just saving national forests for industry to pillage at a later date. They aren’t really set up to be hiked in the same way a national park is set up.  That’s not to say there aren’t trails or scenic overlooks.  Just that finding them are more difficult.   Adding to my problems was I picked a bad area to camp. The campsite was near a river, which drowned out any other notices.  This was great, but there wasn’t else much to do in this area. So after dinner I just sat by the river and skipped rocks.  It was peaceful. We don’t take enough time to just sit and enjoy a river.  They have provided us so much in the US. Towns wouldn’t exist without many of the rivers that we’ve simply built bridges over and have forgotten about. They are more of an annoyance now than a life bringer. We curse them when they flood and when we have to drive an extra 30 minutes because a road crew is working on the bridge.  Rivers give life to everything they touch.

The next day I went to Bennington to visit a large obelisk that I had spotted earlier. It turned out to be a war monument from the Revolution. Apparently some British (like three of them),Hessian, and indian troops came to steal our supplies on their way to Albany, NY.  The people of New Hampshire and Massachusetts rose up and fought a battle in New York, which they won. I’m pretty sure the British were unaware Vermont existed other than the area between the coast and New York. So why the monument in Vermont? Well the British were going after supplies in Bennington, VT.