No Room at the Inn

Vermont Adventure
Day 1

After nearly 14 hours on the road (I thought New York was never going to end) we finally arrived at our destination – Woodstock, VT – just before 4 p.m.

All the rooms are full.

The Ardmore Inn

Every Inn needs a porch lion.

Guardian of the Inn

Possibly the fattest cat ever.

We were welcomed to Ardmore Inn by our hostess, Charlotte, and shown our room. Each bedroom suite is named after a Vermont author (one of the reasons I chose this inn) and we are in the Chris Bohjalian room.

In celebration of our 30 year wedding anniversary, Charlotte had a small bottle of champagne on ice for us.

Champaign on ice waiting for us in our room.

The bed is so tall it takes steps to get into it!

Please don’t let me fall out of this thing!

There is a cozy fireplace, too, if we needed one at this time of year.  As cold as Mark is keeping this room, I could use it. 🙂

Fireplace

The whirlpool tub is GIANORMOUS! I think I could drown in this thing.

Humongous tub!

We only had a couple of hours to unwind and change for our anniversary dinner.  I had made reservations at Simon Pearce Restaurant in Quechee.  Simon Pearce is situated right over the waterfalls on the Ottaquechee River and we were blessed to get a waterfall table!

Celebrating 30 years.

Of course from behind the screen, this is what my photo of the Quechee covered bridge looked like. 🙂

Quechee covered bridge.

Mark decided to be adventurous and ordered pistachio crusted tuna steaks (served medium rare) with emulsified wasabi peas and black rice.  (The menu is very sparse and nothing on it is ordinary.)  I had chicken breast with arugula, heirloom tomatoes, sunchokes and some other stuff on it with sunchoke puree.

Farm to table chicken something-something.

I preferred dessert – dark chocolate mousse with raspberry puree and crème fresh.

Simon Pearce is famous for glass-blowing and there is a glass-blowing studio below stairs.  They sell their items in the gift shop and also have a gallery across the street.  We couldn’t – or maybe I should say wouldn’t – afford anything there.  ($48 for a plain glass tumbler!)

They also have their own hydro-electric plant downstairs.  I didn’t take photos of the turbine because it just looked like a giant hunk of green metal.

Here is a better photo of the covered bridge taken from outside the restaurant.

Quechee covered bridge.

And here is the restaurant as viewed from the bridge.  We were sitting in the left-hand corner of the white terrace overlooking the water.

Back of the Simon Pearce restaurant, overlooking the river.

(I have to be honest here and say I took these the next day because by time we left the restaurant, it was too late.)

One more of the falls.

The dam and falls at Quechee.

I hope you enjoyed this glimpse of Vermont!  Join me on our next adventure to Quechee Gorge!