Our final destination for the U.S. home leave trip was the "Northeast Kingdom" of Vermont. My former boss, Gary, offered us the use of his house on Lake Salem near his hometown of W. Charlestown, VT. We had four glorious days of fun and adventure in this area which is just four miles from the Canadian border. The first picture above is just a typical rural scene that I took during a run through the Vermont countryside.
Our main activities here were swimming, fishing, hiking, paddling, and jumping off the bridge at Echo Lake. Joseph, Maria, Juliana, and I all caught fish in Salem Lake. We caught extremely small specimens of perch, whitefish, and sunfish. Maria was especially proud of the sunfish she reeled in from the dock.
On our second day, we hiked to the top of Wheeler Mountain above Lake Willoughby. It was a quite challenging two hour climb to the summit which included scrambling over some exposed granite faces of the mountain. Afterward we swam on the beach at the north end of Lake Willoughby which had some of the clearest water I have ever seen.
On our last full day, we spent several hours paddling down the Clyde River and across Pensioner's Pond with two kayaks and a canoe that we rented at a great local outfitter named Clyde River Recreation. The scenery was gorgeous and all of the kids did very well piloting their boats.
We learned one Vermont lesson the hard way. On our drive back from Echo Lake to Salem Lake, I drove through a deep brown puddle in the right lane of a country road. The resulting splash bathed the right side of our car with an extremely foul stench. It was two car washes and a 1200 mile drive back to Peoria before the smell abated.
Our friend Gary advised us that all Vermonters know to "never eat yellow snow and never drive through brown puddles". Lessons learned the hard way.
Our main activities here were swimming, fishing, hiking, paddling, and jumping off the bridge at Echo Lake. Joseph, Maria, Juliana, and I all caught fish in Salem Lake. We caught extremely small specimens of perch, whitefish, and sunfish. Maria was especially proud of the sunfish she reeled in from the dock.
On our second day, we hiked to the top of Wheeler Mountain above Lake Willoughby. It was a quite challenging two hour climb to the summit which included scrambling over some exposed granite faces of the mountain. Afterward we swam on the beach at the north end of Lake Willoughby which had some of the clearest water I have ever seen.
On our last full day, we spent several hours paddling down the Clyde River and across Pensioner's Pond with two kayaks and a canoe that we rented at a great local outfitter named Clyde River Recreation. The scenery was gorgeous and all of the kids did very well piloting their boats.
We learned one Vermont lesson the hard way. On our drive back from Echo Lake to Salem Lake, I drove through a deep brown puddle in the right lane of a country road. The resulting splash bathed the right side of our car with an extremely foul stench. It was two car washes and a 1200 mile drive back to Peoria before the smell abated.
Our friend Gary advised us that all Vermonters know to "never eat yellow snow and never drive through brown puddles". Lessons learned the hard way.
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