And unless you want to spend your monthly paycheck for a room you would only for use for about 10 hours (and then only for sleeping) it would seem a silly thing to do.

And it would have been.

So we didn't.

We went instead to nearby Vermont, the picturesque state that non-natives find so charming.  And it was.  And we did.

And it wasn't silly, even if we did spend more money than planned.

We didn't take major highways.  Of course, in Vermont you can't take
a major highway unless you are way over by the New Hampshire border and you are going north to south or vice versa.  There are no major highways in the eastern part of Vermont.

There are through ways, but these are not major roads.  These are roads that go through and are not dead ends.  There are a lot of dead ends; we took a few of them because Vermonters do not think they have to post a sign saying the obvious.  And when the road ended then it was quite obvious to us that it was not,  obviously, a through way.

We were drinking wine and eating snacks at the time, so we didn't mind.

We skirted Manchester, stopped at a great coffee/bakery and got some really nice Kenya coffee and went on our way, determined not to be suckered into the melee that was and is the outlet shopping mall center of the East Coast.  But then Art saw the "Store Closing Everything 20% to 50% OFF" at London Fog and decided to pull in as he doesn't really have a raincoat.

Of course, he doesn't wear a raincoat, but maybe that's because he doesn't  really have one. He does now.  And a rain  hat.  And a rain jacket.  And some flannel lined pants.

At the counter we learned that you got to pull a card  out of a shoe box and rub off the little silver spot and get more percentage off of your total.   I hurried back and picked out a fake fur collared rain coat for Nancy so she would no longer need to wear mine when we went somewhere where she needed a nice coat instead of the denim
jacket that says Rosie O'Donnel on the back in bright pink.

Don't ask.

Artie got another 20% off all of his purchases.  Some of them were 40% off  prior to the extra 20% so he was feeling quite good about spending $230 total for the above mentioned and a few other items I forget because there weren't any for me.  I have a raincoat.  And a rain jacket.   And I didn't want flannel lined pants.

We stopped at the Chocolate Barn and got some really expensive chocolates.  It was a worthwhile ten minutes.

The Vermont countryside is filled with little villages that have steepeled white churches and old school houses and brick federal style houses and colonial clapboards and an occasional turreted Victorian house with a huge porch.

There are still dirt roads in Vermont.  And sidewalks.  And not a lot of malls, plazas or even all night grocery stores.  It's a pleasant change from "real" life.

We stayed at the Wilder Homestead, a center hall Federal style house with a dozen fireplaces.  There was one in our room, along with a four poster canopy bed, a corner cupboard to hang your clothes in, and a
comfortable wingback chair.

We lounged in the lounge downstairs, which also had a fireplace and lots of books to browse through.  There was a small pub only open during the evening hours, and two dining rooms, cheery and  fireplaced.

The owners were from England but had been living in Spain for
ten years before they came to the states last March.  Peter MacKay was born in Scotland, but spent his youth in Kent.  Patsy was born in California but grew up near Manchester.  She made great cranberry pancakes for breakfast;  her own recipie because she could no
longer get fresh blueberries with which to make blueberry pancakes.
Californian by birth, English by rearing, Spanish by living, she is now a
true Vermonter making do with what's available.  They were very tasty.

We stopped at the general store and browsed, then ate dinner at another inn down the main street.  Duck for me and pheasant for Artie.  Mine too rare, his too dry.  We should have stayed and eaten at the Wilder as our hostess suggested but we thought we'd try this place that the guide books gave four stars..........

The four stars turned out to mean extra expensive.

The bed was comfortable and we slept very well.  The weather turned rainy Saturday night, but by Sunday morning the sun was out and the air was more than temperate.  It seemed odd to be in Vermont in late November and have the air temperature be in the low 60's.  Where was the snow?  Where were the skiers?  I kept thinking of the old General in White Christmas and how he kept assuring Bing Crosby there'd be snow by Saturday........

Weston is home to the Vermont Country Store, from whom I have been receiving catalogues for years and years and out of which I have bought some very useful things like "Farmer's Hand Salve" and "Udder Cream" and the Vermont Weather stick, which is a stick that turns up for one kind of weather and down for another kind.  If you hang it up outside your window, you can just look at the stick to see what kind of weather you're having.  Which saves looking out at the actual weather itself, out there just beyond the Weather Stick.

I had also gotten the navy blue flannel hotwater bottle covers for the two hot water bottles that I also ordered, so that we could have cozy feet.

That was before I realized that our wood burning furnace heats and heats and heats and that our bedroom stays warmer than...

I'll never get to use the flannel sheets, much less the hotwater bottles with their own little blue flannel booties.  We keep the electric fan running most nights all  year round.  Plus we have a dog that likes to sleep on our feet so a hot water bottle in a blue flannel wrapper is redundant.

I didn't know any of this when I ordered them from the Vermont Country Store.   This was way back when  I had three or four credit cards...

Artie said he'd read the paper and I could go shopping "downtown" and I  headed for the Vemont Country Store, but it was closed.  They don't open on Sundays, tourists be damned.  Too bad, it was huge.  Not from the road.  From the road it was a clapboard house with an upstairs and downstairs porch and painted red.  However, behind there were a series of large, larger and largest barns, all  connected, that were part of the "store".

I was disappointed I couldn't get inside to glimpse some of the things I had read about in the catalogue:  the penny candy, the plastic bowl covers, the windup watches, the Vermont Cheeses, the flannel nightgowns....

I was resigned to go back to the B&B in a pout until I saw across the road the little OPEN sign hanging from a sled with a big red  bow on it and realized there was a Christmas Shop where I could spend an hour so that Art could read his paper in peace.

So I did.  An hour and $50.

Later we took a little walk to look at the waterfalls then piled into the car and  started our drive home.  We took unmarked roads that seemed to be heading in  the general direction of home and meandered through places we never heard  of and will probably never see again.

Next to one old barn on the outskirts of a place called Tinmouth (church, general store, firehall, postoffice, five houses and an academy - the local school) there were a series of old barns ending with an even older lean-to.  The lean-to was being used as a carriage house.  Filled with antique wagons and carriages.  Open to the elements.  Vermonters throw nothing away.  A little like the people at Witenagemot Farm....

We stopped and bought two pounds of Vermont Cheddar, extra sharp of course, and some ice and had a convivial drive home, winding through villages and countryside.  But even in the remotest of locations, too many people, houses everywhere, and too few dirt roads.

Dirt roads make a vacation.