The Long Way Home-Part 1

This past weekend we went up to prepare for carpeting upstairs. Chores included bringing down the old carpet, removing anything small enough or light enough to carry downstairs, a quick sweep and getting underlayment for the floor. We decided to put a little extra down now rather than later to cover the floor seams and give a smoother surface for the carpet. After cleaning up it kind of looked like we were starting all over again. Once we accomplished these tasks we decided we would take a road less traveled toward home. We have been talking about going the "back" way for a while, on the roads we see parallel the main highway, and it was a wonderfully warm day, so we set the GPS to "Home" and "Least use of Highways" to see which way it would direct us.

We started down the road, and it was warm, and a bit buggy. Although you could not really see them, the casualties started appearing on the windshield. We ended up on Route 5, which paralleled the Connecticut River, the NH/VT border, and the main railroad tracks running north/south. We drove through a small town named Passumpsic, scene of a mid winter rollover by yours truly, and home to a railroad graveyard. A spur came from the main rail line, and into a yard, which had 2 more sets of tracks, which appeared to dead end on the property. Each set of tracks in the yard had numerous rail cars, including different engine, caboose, flatbed, and box cars, plus a few oddities such as a crane and plow car.
The engines were of various shapes and sizes, but all were in the state of disrepair. The engine pictured below seems to be missing half of the engine compartment for the conductor. Also look at the caboose in the background, it is pretty dilapidated as well.
There was even an old time water tower for the steam locomotive on a flat bed car.
Continuing south through Barnet, the road kind of meanders and as we rounded one particular corner all you could here was the thunderous echo of rushing water, and so we stopped to get a couple of shots of the water cascading over the rocks and down the small gorge which two roads crossed.

As we drove further south, we criss-crossed the railroad, the river and boundaries of each state, alternately in NH and VT, until we came to McIndoe Falls, which put you right on the dam and the water. These pictures were actually take from the NH side of the river. There was also a portage trail for people with canoes to bypass the dam.


Driving towards home we passed through Ryegate, Wells River, Bradford, and a few other towns. I think it was in Bradford, we passed through town just as church was beginning, and everyone was parked on the street. I could just picture 100 years ago, or maybe a little more, when the wagons and horses would be hitched out front. We also drove by this very small park next to a nice waterfall. Still a lot of spring melt going on. We stopped real quick for a pit stop, to clean the windshield, and drove on past Lake Fairlee, and kind of Lake Morey, but drove around Lake Fairlee. Looks like a beautiful place for sure. Finally I looked at the watch and GPS, and noticed we had gone only 60 miles or so in 2 hours, so we decided that was enough for this trip, and set it back to "fastest route" got back on the highway, and after another stop to clean the bugs off made it home late as the sun was setting. Hopefully next time we will continue the drive from where we left off and explore more of the back roads of Vermont.