Vermont Hospitality

Bright and early (6:00) yesterday morning, two friends and I began our drive to Fairlee, Vermont, to attend an Alpha Delta Kappa Tri-state (ME, NH, VT) Conference. I was the designated driver, and Lynn served as co-pilot. Jackie, in the back seat, served as our vital support system.

Most of the long-distance driving in this household is done by Ken, so I'm always a bit nervous to set out in the car and travel hitherto untraveled roads. Or at least roads never before driven by me.

I printed out our driving route at Mapquest and learned the drive would take two hours, 58 minutes. Lynn and I rendezvoused with Jackie in Cornish, ME, at precisely 6:30. We were off.

After we'd traveled Route 25 for about an hour, we came to Meredith, NH. This is a beautiful town on the northwest shore of Lake Winnipesaukee. My header photo, in fact, was taken of the lake yesterday at 7:30 a.m. The fog rising off the lake was eerie and beautiful. (Ken and I used to visit Meredith every summer, but we haven't been back there in years. That's something we need to do soon.)

After my brief photo stop, we continued on to Vermont. Lynn gave the directions from the Mapquest printout: Take a right onto I-93, go 11 miles, take a left onto__, go 11 miles; now take another left, go 11 miles. None of the three of us could figure out why each distance after turning seemed to be eleven miles, but there you have it.

We crossed the Connecticut River into Fairlee, VT, around 8:30 a.m. This came as a surprise to us, since we'd fully expected to arrive in Fairless around 9:00-9:30 a.m. What to do?

Since we were three females who'd sat in a car for 2 1/2 hours, the first order of business was, of course, to find a rest room. I pulled into a convenience store parking lot, dashed inside, and asked the kind girl behind the counter if they had a public restroom. "Sure," she said. "Go to the back, to the door on the left."

I motioned through the front window for Lynn and Jackie to some inside because I'd struck gold. They arrived, and the three of us made use of the "facilities," which were clearly not intended for public use unless the member of the public makes a request with a look of terror and urgency on her face.

While waiting for all three of us to be ready to leave for Lake Morey Resort, I asked the clerk if there were any gift shops open or something of that persuasion. We needed to kill time before heading to the conference, which would start at 9:30.

Just as I asked the question, into the convenience store came one of Fairlee's residents, a very friendly lady of perhaps 60.

She heard me inquire about gift shops, so she dashed over to now the three of us and said, "Oh, you must go to Chapman's!"

We asked where it was, and she pointed up the street, saying, "See? You can see the sign from here."

We then wondered if it would be open at this early hour. "Oh, sure," she replied.

We thanked her and drove the short distance up the street to Chapman's.

What a gold mine! It's a lovely gift shop full of jewelry, handmade Vermont candy, toys, cards, you name it.

Jackie chose a necklace; Lynn chose a bracelet; I chose a bracelet.

As we were browsing, the local customer from the convenience store walked in. "I've thought of another place you should visit if you have time," she said. She then went on to describe a gift shop about twenty minutes away. By this time, though, it was getting close to 9:30 and we knew we'd better hustle to the Lake Morey Resort. We had, after all, come to Vermont for a conference.

We were touched by the hospitality of this lady. She'd gone out of her way to help us have a good time in Fairlee. And we did just that.