Summer 2016 - Vermont, St. Johnsbury

Monday, July 25^th – Sunday, July 31^st

Moose River Campground – St. Johnsbury, Vermont

Photo link:

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Our next adventure was near the town of St. Johnsbury Vermont. This small town is in the north east area of Vermont which is called the Northeast Kingdom. Again we drove the back highways traveling through beautiful green valleys, surrounded by the Green Mountains, farms and small villages along the way. We arrived at the lovely Moose River Campground just on the north side of town. We had a huge pull through campsite with beautiful gardens around the site.

The owners Mary and Gary were extremely friendly and provided us with all kinds of information on activities in the area. Knowing that we had dogs she told us about a nearby property called Dog Mountain, a place set up for the enjoyment of dogs and their people. The owners, who have since passed away, had set up the property for dogs to bring their people and run free and play with other dogs off leash. The property was a few acres on a gorgeous hillside looking over a valley.  There were many activities for the dogs to do; a swimming pond, big fields to run in and even some trails where they could hike with their people. There was an art gallery filled with dog art, mostly created by Steve Huneck, the owner of the property. They also had a chapel on the property that they had built in memory of their dog Sally, a black lab. This beautiful little chapel is decorated in dog decor and the walls are covered with notes, cards and photos of memorials to people's beloved dogs. It was overwhelming and very touching to see and read some of the memorials.

Kody (Kruzer) and Luca went every day, except one, that we were camping in the area. We would take them at the end of the day when there are a lot of other playmates there. Everyone played nice together, got wet in the pond and had a fun doggy play time.  The boys really enjoyed their time to get out and run off leash and to meet new friends.

The biggest attraction for Kurt and I was the Kingdom Trails. About 20 miles north, in the little town of East Burke, is an enormous system of mountain biking trails. There are over 100 miles of mountain biking trails for every level from novice to expert. We went there 3 days that week, and it was wonderful to ride such well engineered and maintained mountain biking trails. The small town of East Burke was very cool and of course centered around mountain biking.

For our last day in the area we decided to drive up further north to Willoughby Lake. I had seen pictures of this online and thought it was the one of the most gorgeous lakes I've ever seen. This is a glacier carved lake with high, rocky mountains on both sides and beaches on the north and south ends. The weather was great, the dogs were with us and we all had a wonderful time enjoying the beautiful scenery. This was a wonderful way to spend our last day in the area and in Vermont.

Did I mention to you all that the weather up here has been just gorgeous? The temps have been around low 80s daytime and the lows at night usually dip down into the mid to lower 50s. Needless to say this is perfect weather for enjoying our summer activities. No wonder why we love it up here in the mountains so much.

Next we will be heading over to New Hampshire and to explore the White Mountains. Can't wait to see if it's as nice as Vermont.

Summer 2016 - Vermont, Lake Champlain

Wednesday, July 20^th – Sunday, July 24^th

Lone Pine Campsites – Colchester, VT near Burlington

Photo link:

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What a beautiful drive from Rutland up to the Burlington area, by Lake Champlain. As usual we drove the backroads. Highway 7 was a gorgeous mountain drive all the way up to the campground, Lone Pine Campsites. The campground was nice as we had expected, we got settled in and right away we met our RV camping neighbors. Really nice family from Vermont and they only live 12 miles away. There were many Vermonters camping there. This campground was up on a ridge overlooking Malletts Bay in a town called Colchester, a bay off of Lake Champlain.

We drove down to Malletts Bay to have a look around and see what was in the area. It was a beautiful bay filled with sailboats and all kinds of recreational boating activities. We even saw a hot air balloon flying over the lake. We had taken the dogs so they could get out and run around a little bit. We started planning activities for the next few days.

Vermont, along with the town of Burlington, is very bicycle friendly. There are bike paths everywhere and we found an amazing Rail Trail that goes up the center of the lake on the causeway that was constructed originally for a railroad, which had been abandoned many years ago. The causeway had been constructed of huge chunks of marble which is very abundant in Vermont. We rode the trail the next day. We rode the bikes up to a point where there was a channel for boats to pass though. At that point we had to board a bicycle ferry that took us to the other side of the channel. We then proceeded up onto the island of Grand Isle in a town called South Hero. We rode around South Hero, which was a small community of farms, cafes and shops. We had a really nice lunch at Allenholm Farm Stand; they had all kinds of animals there, a petting zoo for children and everyone to see, we did enjoy looking at the goats.

After lunch we proceeded to ride the trail all the way back to our truck. The round-trip ride was about 21 miles at the end of the day we were exhausted but amazed by the beautiful Lake, the islands and all the mountains on the east and west. It was wonderful to look eastward and see the Green Mountains and then to look westward and see the Adirondacks in New York. This is a beautiful amazing place.

The next day we really needed a down day so we decided to just check out the city of Burlington, drive around and go to some sporting good shops. We decided to get a hitch mount bike rack to use whenever we are unhitched and need to go to a mountain bike park. It makes it so much easier than to take the wheels off of the bikes and put them in the back of the pickup and then have to reassemble everything when we get to our destination. We eventually found a store called Rack Warehouse, where we found the exact type of bike rack we needed.  Going forward on this trip we will be able to make it a lot easier to haul our bikes around.

Later that afternoon we decided to take a scenic drive up to the Champlain Islands. Again we encountered beautiful farms and quaint little villages throughout the Grand Isle area. There are so many beautiful views to the east of the Green Mountains and to the west of the Adirondacks, along with all the gorgeous little bays and beaches along the way. It was a great way to end our day.

Our last day was spent with our kayaks on the water. We found a river north of us called the Lamoille River. Kurt found an outfitter who hauled our equipment to the top put in and we just paddled downstream back to the outfitters place. We were able to take the dogs on this kayak trip, and they were glad to be outside. It was a gorgeous day and we enjoyed the paddle. The current was running pretty fast because it rained the day before, so we completed the paddle in about 2 hours instead of 3.

We were looking forward to our next adventure in Vermont at St. Johnsbury and the Kingdom Trails for mountain biking.