A Family Weekend

Even looking at this picture gives me the heebie-jeebies! On Memorial Day weekend, we went to visit the granite museum with Janeen, Greg and the kids. This time they were offering a "caravan" tour to the quarry. The quarry is down about 610 feet and they won't go any farther because they don't need to and because they don't have the technology to do so. We learned that the men are lowered in trams down into the quarry to work. The thought of it made me absolutely nauseous. It was an awesome sight. We didn't get a good picture of the gigantic cranes but if you look closely you can see one on the right. A man climbs up there to check all the riggings once a month! We found out that the quarry was the background for the car chase in the new Star Wars movie.

This is an old quarry which is now filled with water and is right beside the other one. The far pool is part of the system to prevent silicosis which killed many quarry workers because of the granite dust. It looks like a beautiful pond for swimming but it's very dangerous.

We also visited you-know-where again. Chris and Trey enjoyed the visit and the ice cream.

On Sunday we again visited the Joseph Smith Memorial where the spirit of the Lord is a tangible gift to all who visit this beautiful place.

We also drove through an interesting cemetery called Hope Cemetery which is a tourist site. It's the subject of a blog all by itself.

On Monday after Janeen and Greg had gone, we went to Barre's annual Memorial Day Parade. It lasted about 30 minutes and was full of lots of vets, bands from the local schools, limos with VFW officials and fire trucks and flags. The streets were lined with cheering people. This group is from the local military high school. Their drill sergeant is from our ward.

It was nice to have family here to share this adventure with us and to have someplace else to sit beside hard kitchen chairs. Dad spent his days putting together furniture which the boys provided for us. Just before I took this picture, I told him that I was going to send Jeff an e-mail. He's saying, "Tell him not to send anything else that I have to put together!"

A Granite Day

On Saturday, we visited the town of Graniteville again. This is an old granite quarry which is now filled with water. It's actually quite pretty, but very dangerous because of the depth and the hidden granite in it.

We visited the Rock of Ages museum in Graniteville which is near Barre. We learned a lot about granite. Rock of Ages is an old company which quarries granite for headstones, monuments, memorials, temples and buildings. This little monument memorializes a Civil War battle and the heroism of a Vermont regiment which produced two Medal of Honor winners. It was dedicated yesterday by the governor and will be moved to the site of the actual battle as a reminder of the bravery of the Vermont regiment. The museum was fascinating. The granite most commonly used here is Barre Grey which we love. The museum employee was very helpful and told us that they will be able to quarry from this site for the next 4600 years!

This is a grout pile--grout in Scottish (we're told) means waste. This is literally a mountain of waste granite. There are several of these in Graniteville and they co-exist happily with the citizenry. Scottish and Italian immigrants manned the quarries of Barre. On our way out of Graniteville, we visited Thunder Road a big race track. There are many stock cars around--derelict and otherwise and you see them in driveways especially in Graniteville. We were surprised at the size of it--it's not very big. There was a big race there the first Saturday this month which attracted notables from all over the country. We couldn't really get close enough to take a picture.

After we left Graniteville, we dressed for our meeting in Essex Junction and headed out on a fairly sunny day. Our plan was to explore the largest town in Vermont, Burlington, and its big attraction Lake Champlain and take lots of pictures. We were thwarted yet again by rain and people. Burlington is the home of the University of Vermont (UVM) and it was graduation weekend as well as some kind of celebration on the Lake so there were people everywhere! Just as we reached the outskirts of Burlington, it started to pour--a real cloudburst and gullywasher which, incidentally, lasted until well after we got home at ten that night. Since we were in our Sunday-go-to-meetin' clothes and only had one umbrella and no coats, we didn't venture out of the car.

We retreated to the mall area of Williston a few miles away where, for half a second, the rain stopped. I'd been wanting to go to the huge The Christmas Shop since our last visit so we did. We have a new motto--whatever you buy you have to be able to take home in the car with you. Did you know that there is not one Christmas item in The Christmas Shop? Not one! It's a little like a Big Lots store. We did find a nice little quilt shop where I bought a yard of fabric. We had a nice meal and still had two hours until our meeting and no desire to shop and the rain was still horrible! So we did the only sensible thing we could--went to the church, parked, took a nap and talked. Our meeting was absolutely one of the best meetings I've ever attended. The ride home was almost frightening--it was raining, dark and no white lines on the roads. More adventure in Vermont!

A Famous Place

Our injunction from our president was to see as many of the sights in the mission as we can while we're here. On Saturday, we decided to visit Stowe, Vermont, which is about 30 miles from Barre. Outside the Archives is a row of crabapple trees which is just beautiful. This tree is near the parking lot to Ben & Jerry's in Waterbury, Vermont, which is on the way to Stowe.

This is the entrance to Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Factory. It was a quick, but fun tour. We had a sample of Oatmeal Cookie Chunk ice cream. Yumm. The tour here was quick especially because they don't actually make ice cream on the weekends. They had a guilt-free mirror which made everyone look skinnier and taller. I'm going to get one of those.

This the sprawling Trapp Family Lodge. After their successful touring for years after their escape to Austria the von Trapp family settled in Vermont because it reminded them of their homeland. This is a huge place with this huge ski resort plus gardens, deer farms, arboretums, etc. The family still maintains this today.

A view from the parking lot across the street from the Lodge. A storm was brewing.

The view moments later in a downpour.

This was the only picture I took in Stowe because of a horrendous downpour. We parked here so Garth could get some pliers at a nearby hardware store. This is the community church in Stowe itself and has the tallest steeple of any I've seen so far. Every town has several old churches most with a tall steeple, but this was very tall. I couldn't get a better picture because the traffic was heavy and the rain was pouring.

Next week the granite quarries. Garth's been waiting for the tour since we got here.

Home Sweet Home

This is the entrance to the General Services building.

This is the entrance to the building where we do our imaging. The truck you see delivers the mail and things that need to be printed for the entire state. Right now the legislature is in session so there's a lot of printing being done. The people are working around the clock.

Dad is standing in front of our apartment. There are eight apartments and we live in #16. Go figure. We're not excited about apartment living.

This is the view from our back window. It's the back door of a big grocery store called Hannaford's. Every morning beginning at five, the supply trucks start rolling in. Guess which ones are first. Sorry about the screen I had to take it from the bedroom window. It's hard to get to the back yard and there's a big drop to the parking lot!

This is the view from our front door. We thought at first that it was a park, but it belongs to the lady whose house you see on the left. She works in that huge yard all the time. It's getting prettier every day.

I guess I spoke too soon that mud season didn't happen this year. It's been raining for two days and is expected to continue through the weekend. We're pretty oblivious to the rain when we're working. Our work demands our entire attention. We've been very blessed by having many prayers answered. We've learned a lot already. We miss you all and hope you'll come to visit Vermont. Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers.

Ah! Spring (in Vermont)

We have learned to our delight (????) that Vermont has five seasons: summer, fall, winter, mud season and spring. This was explained to us by two gentlemen clerks in Radio Shack on Thursday. We'd heard several references to it, but weren't sure what it meant. Last weekend was so nice that some of the "mud celebrations" were cancelled for lack of mud.
Yesterday, we visited with another set of clerks (older gentlemen) who assured us that the unseasonably warm weather this year has made us skip mud season altogether. We'd seen a couple of mud boggers which are vehicles which help pull people out of the mud absolutely every inch of which were covered with mud. They pronounced the warm weather as a boon to commuters on Vermont's many byways. We encountered one of those byways on our way to the Repository yesterday morning. We had to go by the FedEx and encountered a "beautiful" road which, fortunately, was hardened by the frost. This morning we have pouring, down wet rain. I think we'll skip the byways!