Vermont Trip-Part 2

As I mentioned, we arrived early at the Wildflower Inn well before check-in. We had just spent a rather rainy night in the tent and then driven a couple of hours and were anxious to get cleaned up and settled in. The person at the front desk at the Wildflower Inn took our name and cell phone number and said she would alert the cleaning staff to give our room a priority so we could check in as soon as possible and that she would call us if the room was ready early.

We headed into East Burke a couple of miles away and went to check out the Kingdom Trails Association office where we could get our maps and passes to ride the mountain bike trails in the area. We did not get a pass but did get some maps. We also asked the bike dude working in the office there where we could get a relatively economical lunch. He told us of a place about a block away which we could walk to. We ordered our sandwiches and just as we started eating, the Wildflower Inn called and our room was ready. It was only about noon so we were really lucky.

After lunch we went back and checked into our room which was really nice. It had a great view of the meadows and mountains. There was a nice queen size bed and a little kitchen area complete with stove, sink, microwave, fridge, cookware, real plates and real silverware. If we wanted to shop and cook a little, we could easily do that to save a little money during the week. We did not end up doing that but we did use the microwave a couple of days to heat up some dinner leftovers. The option to cook was there but who wants to cook on vacation? Not us. Below are a couple of pictures showing the view from our balcony and from the bathroom window. (Please note, if you click on a picture it will open up bigger and then you can click Back to get back to the Blog).

We spend the rest of the day getting cleaned up and settled in. We checked out the whole area around the Inn including taking a look at the cows, checking out the sauna and pool and just walking around enjoying the cool weather. It seemed cool to us compared to Richmond where it was over 100 degrees and very humid. Below are a few pictures of the area around the Inn.

Before you knew it, we had to think about dinner. We made reservations for the River Garden in East Burke. The restaurant ended up being superb. The food was so fresh and delicious and plentiful. One thing that struck me as we were in town for dinner was all the bikes and cars with bike racks. They were everywhere. We were in a mountain bike haven. We were staying right in the middle of some of the best mountain biking trails on the East Coast and it was exciting to be there with so much time to ride and also relax and of course not work. Here are a few pictures of the restaurant.

After dinner we walked around and checked out some of the trail heads. All of the trails are marked with a red sign with black lettering and a symbol that indicates the difficulty of the trails. The trail difficulty varied from a green circle which was easy to a blue square which was harder to the black diamond which was for experts. There were also some double black diamond trails as well as some triple black diamond trails. Below are some pictures of the trail heads signs that label the trails. Did I mention that there are over 100 miles of trails? Here are just a few of the signs that we encountered during the week.

As Sunday drew to a close, I was feeling quite relaxed and definitely in vacation mode. With no television in the room, we read our magazines, looked at the maps and planned our week. We really only had a few things on the schedule. We had a three hour kayak trip that was part of our paddle and pedal package as well as two afternoon spa treatments just down the road at the spa. Other than that, we had not really planned anything other than biking, eating, and relaxing.

Monday morning we got up and waltzed our way down to breakfast which was included in our package. We had fresh cut fruit and granola mixed with yogurt from the cold bar and ordered eggs and/or pancakes. Each morning we had the fruit, yogurt, and granola and whatever the special was for that day or we just stuck with blueberry pancakes. After our Monday breakfast we went down to the Kingdom Trails Association headquarters and bought our day passes and got some suggested routes to take.

After we drove back to our room and got saddled up, we headed out the door. The trails were really excellent. We went through some rolling meadows before ducking into the woods. The trails were well marked and they had a really excellent flow. We ended up riding for about 2 hours before breaking for lunch back at the Inn and then a 1 hour nap and then back out to the trails to ride for another 2 hours. Melissa really did well. The trails were somewhat technical and there were some climbs that I am pretty sure were longer than anything she has ever done before. She rode them all like a champ. I am really proud of her. We had such a nice time out there and got a super workout. Below are some pictures from the chapel that we encountered towards the tail end of our Monday afternoon ride as well as few other pictures from the trail.

After our ride we had dinner at the Wildflower Inn which was also really excellent. I felt like I ate so much. In fact, that seemed to be the trend for the whole week. Bigger than usual breakfast, a decent size lunch, and a huge dinner. I thought for sure that when I got back to Richmond, I would find that I had gained weight. In actuality when I did get back and weigh myself, I had lost a pound or two. Not to give anything away but I did end up riding over 17 hours total. More on that later.

Well that about wraps up our first few days in Vermont. I think next time I can wrap it up in one file segment. I hope you enjoy the pictures. More on Vermont to come.