Burlington, VT: Because Saratoga Wasn't Cold Enough

It's Rob's 4-day weekend this weekend, and we wanted to get out of the house and out of town. Gas prices are way down and our hybrid gets 40mpg, so we started looking at places to go for a short day trip. We notice right away that Burlington, VT is less than 3 hours away. Neither of us really knew anything about the place, other than it's supposedly the hippie capital of New England. That doesn't really give us an idea of what we're supposed to do when we get there though. Rob looks around online and finds a couple of Starbucks locations and seems really happy about it. Starbucks? Really? What's the point of driving 3 hours away to a so-called hippie town for Starbucks? No way!! He goes back to searching, and finds a locally owned coffee shop called Muddy Waters. He seemed to like where it was located, so that's what we settled on. It was official. We were about to drive 3 hours north in November for a scenic drive and a cup of coffee.

The drive turned out to be really beautiful. The entire way we either had a view of mountains, or frozen rivers, or big lakes, or a combination of the three. It was really great. It even made up for the fact that we missed our exit and added almost another hour onto the trip! I'm only disappointed that we didn't take a ferry ride across Lake Champlain. I know, I know. After all of my ferry rides between Bremerton and Seattle, I probably would have been over it within minutes. It would have been the perfect place to just sit back and nurse my baby though.

Three Four hours after leaving our house, we finally made it to Burlington. We found our coffee shop right away and a parking space right out front. Score! That's always a bonus in freezing weather, especially when you're hauling a baby around. We walk up to the door, and Rob makes one last plea for Starbucks. Ha! Not a chance! After one peek inside, I wasn't going anywhere. It looked like you were walking into a log cabin! I walked inside and got excited when I saw a group of people with a carton of chocolate soymilk on their table. Then I got even MORE excited when I looked at the menu: Vegetarian Chili, Hummus and Veggie Plate, Smoothies...all in addition to the coffee! I forgot all about the sandwiches I packed and ordered a hummus platter with my coffee.


After our coffees, we decided to wander out and explore downtown for a while. We were back in the car 5 minutes later with the heater cranked up, on our way back to Saratoga. We loved what we saw of Burlington...but next time we visit, we're either wearing snowsuits, or waiting for warmer weather.