Please Point Me In The Direction Of The Nearest Spinning Class

This morning the fam and I had one final hurrah before Elise had run to an exam and Memere and Granddad had to head off to Boston to catch their flight home.

The first stop Magnolia Bistro.  As you can all tell from my blackberry photo, they were VT's first certified green restaurant.  How fancy right?  The food was AMAZING - I started the day off with pumpkin bread french toast.  After a piece and a half I was sufficiently stuffed and have packed the remaining bit in my carry on for breakfast tomorrow!  I even have  VT syrup in my cupboard to make the experience legit.

And this dear reader, is the point at which everything started going down hill.  Being the conscientious person and credit card holder, I decided to pay my bill a few days early.  You could imagine my shock when my account was overdrawn by several hundred dollars.  It turns out someone decided to go on a shopping spree with my debit card - no es bueno.  An hour and three customer service reps I was in need of a drink!!

Thank goodness we decided to take a tour of the Magic Hat brewery. As you can see all that stress melted away once I had my picture taken in front of one of their traveling vans!

Because it was a Monday, we were on the self guided tour.  As soon as you started climbing the stairs, you could hear the rattling of the beers on the line.  The whole thing was pretty cool and we got to see everything from start to finish.

The empty bottles are put on the line and come to the first machine that fills them with the beer of the day and later caps them.

The bottles then move down the line to where the labels are glued to the bottle. 

All the while the shipping boxes are assembled.

After the grand tour (the parentals were excited to see them bottling beer this time) you are invited to go down stairs and give some things a try.  There is a long bar and were probably about ten beers to try including their fall and winter seasonal beers.  My favorite was the fall seasonal beer, HEX; sadly production is winding down to get ready for the darker, heavier winter ones.

I learned some great things about this company including 1) they have some of the best names for their employees  2)  they are a socially responsible beer (this does not surprise me all that much)  3)  they are a huge supporter of the Women's Rape Crisis Center here in Burlington!  I am swooning left and right here people.  The company basically has captured my business from now until the time!!

We grabbed lunch and wandered around Church Street.  The final stop was Lake Champlain chocolates where I picked up some delicious Aztec Hot Chocolate (think Mexican hot chocolate).  It will be perfect once the cold weather hits PGH!

And now my fellow readers, I must depart as they are calling for me to board my plane.  Burlington, it has been real and I think you made me gain five pounds!

Q:  What do you call a cow who just had a baby?

A:  Decafinated

THANK YOU FOLKS ... I WILL BE HERE ALL YEAR LONG

(or until mid July)

Cata - who?

So the real reason I am in VT is to surprise my sister.  Elise has actually decided to do work during her college tenure and is being inducted into The National Society of Collegiate Scholars tomorrow.  I was supposed to unveil myself this morning in a big "TA DA" moment, but as we all know loose lips sink ships.  She put on her best surprise face, lets just say she will not be taking home an Oscar any time soon!



For lunch we stopped by the Red Onion where we got some delicious sandwiches.  They roast their turkey every night and bake the bread in the morning.  They also had fresh hot cider. 





We spent the rest of the early afternoon wandering around Burlington (mostly by car)

As we walked into the ballroom for the induction ceremony I felt like I was entering a world of Chi Omega - filled with red and yellow, as well as white carnations.  The ceremony was short and sweet (the best kind) and I even snagged a picture of Elise taking her oath. 

Now for those of you not in the know, the Catamaran is their official mascot.  Sadly earlier this year, the Catamaran was put on the extinct list, but its legacy still lives on.  After the induction ceremony we decided to take a few moments out of our afternoon for a guerrilla photo shoot.

Ben and Jerry's ... Don't Mind If I Do!

Within moments of touching down in Burlington International Airport (I guess it is international because they do flights to Canada?) the parentals and I headed off to take the Official Ben and Jerry's Tour. 

We pulled up and to the factory and everyone and their mother was there!  As we walked to the entrance, let me tell you people Fall pretty much smacked me in the face.  Crisp breeze, leaves crunching under my feet, the smell of fall.  I guess you can take the girl out of New England, but you can’t take the New England out of the girl. 

See what I mean.  In the words of Ina Garten “How good does that look?”

Papadukes and I are now the Official, Unofficial New Faces of Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.  Eat your hearts out!!  That pun was intentional. 

As we were waiting for our tour of the factory to begin, I went in search of the great Flavor Graveyard.  I walked up the path and stumbled upon said graveyard complete with headstones and everything.  They really should have played up the fall, haunted graveyard aspect, but that is for another day. 

People, it was a sad day when I came to discover that Coffee, Coffee BuzzBuzzBuzz was retired.  I also found it intriguing that there was a Woopie Pie flavor (these things have been popping up all over the place the last few weeks).  

Ben and Jerry's has lead the way in corporate responsibility; they currently work off three mission statements which focus on social, product and economic issues.  One of the bigger campaigns the company has recently taken on is in regards to GMOs.  Also they have decided that by 2013 all of their ingredients in their ice cream will be Fair Trade, meaning that not only are the ingredients produced in a sustainable fashion, the farmers and laborers of those ingredients are also treated fairly and paid a decent wage.

Both men are still active advocates for a variety of charities and social issues.  Ben Cohen can frequently be found on the Hill discussing the US Federal Budget through an exercise that utilizes Oreo Cookies.  For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about check out the quick and dirty video:

Click here for the video