Katie and I crammed a lot into two days and didn't have to drive more than about an hour away. We spent all day yesterday at the Shelburne Museum. There is too much to see in one day and, in fact, your ticket buys you two consecutive days.  I think it would be hard to absorb any more if you really spend time reading all the signs and looking at everything.

This is just one room of Shaker tools. Behind Katie there are more tools, wood stoves, and a lot of things that I can't identify.

Here is the Jacquard loom in the weaving shed.

How about a two-handed spinning wheel? There are two bobbins and the docent told us that one person used this wheel to spin two bobbins at a time.

This is a portion of a reed from a loom--made with real reeds.

There is an entire house displaying weather vanes, whirly-gigs, and ships' mast-heads.

The Museum grounds are full of incredible buildings. This horseshoe-shaped barn houses dozens of sleighs and buggies on two levels. Other buildings house a 1":1' scale circus train, blacksmith shop, printing presses, dental office, general store, apothecary, toys, dolls, quilts, wooden decoys. Can you imagine entire displays of glass canes, trivets, crystal glasses, hatboxes, embroidery samplers? The list goes on. At the end of the day when we found there was only about 35 minutes until closing we breezed through the Fashion exhibit and had to skip a couple of other buildings.

 We came home exhausted and finished the evening by making triple chocolate ice cream in Katie's new Kitchen Aid ice cream maker and watching the DVD of Cavalia that I had given Katie for Christmas after having seen the show.

It rained last night and that was good, for I guess two weeks without rain in VT in the summer is considered almost a drought. Today we drove south and went to three more tourist attractions.

Living in California, I don't know much about "sugaring" so this was an interesting exhibit. Especially fun was the tasting room. There is quite a difference between the mild and the stronger flavored maple syrup, but all are good.

 

We drove past and through picturesque  covered bridges on our way to the next stop.

The Vermont Marble Museum is fascinating. It is housed in what was once a huge mill/warehouse and has rooms full of exhibits and marble. Lots of marble. There is a poignant exhibit describing the construction of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The marble for the monument came from Colorado but was designed and finished in Vermont. There are marble portraits of all the U.S. Presidents up through Bush #1. Take a look below.

 

 This is a huge room full of slabs of all kinds of marble. I had no idea there was this much variety.

Our day wasn't finished. We had passed a sign that said "Castle 3 miles". Why not?

The Wilson Castle was built in the mid-1800's for almost $1.5 million!

It is a spectacular building with an interesting history, but I think I liked the outside veranda best. Doesn't the tile floor look woven?

More VT  tourism reports tomorrow!