Burlington

I have a goal of visiting all 50 states. Vermont was one of the last states on the eastern half of the US and since we planned to vacation in Maine this summer we decided to make a quick trip to Vermont, specifically Burlington, first. 

It took us about 10.5 hours to get there...there were some rough points along the drive, but overall I think it went pretty well. We got to Burlington just in time for dinner. Multiple people recommended the Farm House Tap and Grill located downtown in the Church Street Marketplace. The Farm House Tap and Grill was awesome. They feature local farms and breweries which means everything is super fresh. As you have probably figured out I love food, cooking, and restaurants. Matt on the other hand eats to live. This is probably the first restaurant that got Matt inspired about food. Without prompting, Matt talked about how great everything we had to eat was. I was extremely impressed by his food dialogue. After dinner we walked around Church Street. 

Church Street, and Burlington in general, is very reminiscent of all of my adventures in Boulder. Church Street is a smaller version of Boulder's Pearl Street. They both feature shops and a bunch of restaurants. I'm fairly certain you could go out to eat in Burlington for a month and find new and great places everyday. The people watching was also great. The next morning we went to the waterfront on Lake Champlain to take a walk. This was the most disappointing part of the trip as the weather was very overcast that morning. 

After viewing the lake we went back to Church Street to visit some of the stores that were closed the night before. The biggest gem that we found was Saratoga Olive Oil Co. This place was amazing. They had 3 of my top food loves: olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and sea salt. Seriously it was amazing, another place that even got Matt excited. After our extended time in the olive oil store we decided to head to Massachusetts, but on the way stopped in Waterbury, VT at the Ben and Jerry's factory. The wait for tours was too long, but we did get some ice cream and viewed some other parts of the grounds.

After leaving Vermont we continued our week long vacation in Maine and Massachusetts. We had lots of good times along the way. Stay tuned for future posts on our vacation :)