Day 6: Tour of The All American Life

Fall Foliage: Day 6

Wow! This was such a great day, filled with different activities, something for everyone. We left Killington and headed over to Rockingham to The Vermont Country Store: Purveryors of the Practical & Hard-To Find. It was a huge store filled with clothes, food, toys, kitchenware and soaps. Entering the store was like passing through a time portal to a time when your grandmother's favorite candy filled the shelves and the best toys were made of wood and NEVER plugged in. We spent an hour and half shopping, but for many, it wasn't enough. (Good thing we took catalogues home).

Next, we pacified our cravings for everything apple at The Apple Barn. Apple Pie a la Mode seemed to be the favorite but others took pleasure in apple pastries, fresh apples, cold apple cider and even some Vermont cheddar cheese. Everything was...in the words of Rachael Ray.....YUMMO!

We stopped for lunch in the town of Stockbridge where Norman Rockwell lived out the later part of his life.

The Norman Rockwell Museum was a wonderful collection of his humorous and moving illustrations. An interesting point brought to our attention was that Rockwell was an illustrator which means that he sold the copyright to his work, never the actual paintings. This was good for us because that meant Rockwell's collection at the time of his death was almost near complete (as complete as one could imagine considering he made over 4000 works of art). They had every cover of The Saturday Evening Post that Rockwell illustrated, all four of the "Four Freedom" paintings and many more. They even had Rockwell's original studio on exhibit. Unfortunately, no photographs were aloud in the museum....too bad.

Our last stop of the day was in Podunk Massachusetts to dine at the Salem Cross Inn. This home held historic value having been built around 1700 and has been a working farm ever since. The name of the inn refers to the symbol on the door that protects the home from evil witches.

It was a delightful dining experience including costumed waitresses, an apple cobbler demonstration, Yankee pot roast and a mountain of home made whip cream for dessert.