Exploring Vermont, Day 1

We made it to Burlington, Vermont for our 1 Year Anniversary Trip. It's a little different than Hawaii (our honeymoon), but it will work :)

The drive up was about 3 1/2 hours. We stopped in New London, New Hampshire for my absolute favorite restaurant in the state of NH (and one of my top favorites ever): Peter Christian's Tavern. This place is near my childhood summer home and I have endless memories of it. Plus, they serve really tasty soups and sandwiches (and really good honey mustard that they sell to take home). Somehow I didn't take any pictures of our beautiful patio seat, but there is a good chance we'll be back on the way home so I'll have another opportunity.

Our first night we arrived, we checked out a place that had been recommended to me by a friend I used to work with (thank goodness for facebook) and it was rated the number 1 place to eat in Burlington on Tripadvisor- that's enough to convince me. It was called American Flatbread. Yes, it is a pizza place, but not just any pizza place- a pizza place that brews beers on site AND has only local ingredients (very Vermont). For beer I tried one of the house brews called Schoen Dorf... was probably one of the best beers I've ever had and it's actually kind of unfortunate that I can't get this beer anywhere else.

Mine was the top pizza- the "vegan" haha- It has tomato sauce, mushrooms and black beans- yum. The pizza was delicious and the service was great too. Plus the whole meal with drinks was $30 and I still have half that pizza in my fridge which I'll be having for lunch today.

Yesterday was our first full day and we had two major things on tap. #1- sailing on Lake Champlain. We made a reservation about a week ago with a company called Whistling Man Schooner Company which does 2 hour sails around the lake. There is also a big boat call The Spirit of Ethan Allen II that also does tours, the reviews were more mixed but I'm assuming if your goal is just to see Lake Champlain you'd be fine with either.

The day was flat calm, so there wasn't a lot of actual sailing happening, but as somehow who gets sick when it gets rough on boats, I really can't complain.

There were about 12 people on the boat, as well as a captain and first mate. Here is a look back at Burlington on the way out...

On the other side of the lake is New York State and the Adirondack mountains.

Life is good.

While on the boat, Eric also read up on "Champ" which is basically the Nessie (Loch Ness) of Lake Champlain. Eric enjoys underwater sea monsters and has a goal to swim in all the locations that are said to have them. So far, he has swam in Loch Ness and will hopefully swim in Lake Champlain before the weekend is over. A few more to go, I'm sure :)

Burlington Harbor has a break water (30 foot tall rock wall) to protect it. I think it's also pretty...

Post sailing adventure, Eric and I got soft serve and smoothies and headed back to our hotel to regroup. Next, it was time for adventure #2 of the day. The Magic Hat Brewery! Magic Hat is a favorite for Eric and his family so we were excited to visit the brewery.

It did not disappoint. It was really cool both inside and out.

Magic Hat just gave off a really awesome vibe. The people were really relaxed and seemed like people you could just befriend in a minute. Plus, they offered a free tour of the brewery, tons of samples AND Eric won a free pint glass for being able to tell what ingredients go into making all beers. Wahoo.

Finally, for dinner we headed back to Church Street (the main street in Burlington). We ate at a restaurant called Asiana Noodle House which served pretty good Japanese food. Although the real draw was the atmosphere. Church Street is fantastic for people watching and we had an awesome start up band from New Orleans playing next to us for most of dinner. They were great and lots of cute kids stopped to dance which added to the entertainment value.

Also, Eric found something very pink in his food...

Lol. It turned out to be a fish cake! I am really curious how it got to be so pink!

My college roommate was from Seattle Washington and one of the things she found fascinating about Boston (other than the fact that we did not have to bolt our shelves to our desks in case of earthquakes) was that we could very easily drive into several states in one day. Obviously in Washington State, this is a little more difficult. This post just proves this fact, as I spent Thursday in 3 states (MA, NH and VT) and then yesterday, I had a gorgeous view of the state of NY. Crazy!

Now I must go, time to wake up Eric so we can get free breakfast before our adventures today :) I hope everyone is having a great weekend!