Service had been great and, happily, the weather, for the most part, had cooperated, so we were able to get outside in the fresh mountain air and enjoy using the well groomed trails of the Trapp Family Lodge. Now our vacation was over and others were arriving at the Lodge to take our place.
One of the things that I hoped to do was snowshoe or ski up Highway 108 into the Smuggler’s Notch to take some photos of the Notch and all of the great rock formations along the highway. Highway 108 through the Smuggler’s Notch is closed to vehicular traffic in the winter so a great time to go there afoot. Didn’t get to do that this time around because of the threatened heavy rain on the day that I wanted to go there. It didn’t rain much in the end. I guess that should teach me not to trust the weather forecast when making my decisions :-(.
A long time ago, I was a Federal Government Food Inspector in Canada so I have seen my share of food manufacturing sites but I’m always open to touring another one. We were thinking of taking the tour of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream manufacturing plant on our way home, but opted instead to stop at their retail counter and buy a couple of delicious ice cream cones :-). The tour will need to wait until another day.
Ben & Jerry brand ice cream occupies a spot in the super premium ice cream category of products, so it was nice to see that their external storage tanks for cream and milk outnumbered their sugar storage tank by a ratio of 4 to 1 :-).
Having filled up on ice cream, we headed north along I-89. Earlier in the day, we had heard a metallic noise under the car, but I thought it was the noise of something shifting in the ski box on top. By the time that we had travelled the short distance along I-89 to Essex, Vermont, it was clear that something was hanging too low. The metallic scraping sound every time that we hit a bump was a sure sign that something was amiss!
