Sunday April 14th 2024 and Monday April 15th - Spring Vermont Family Trip - Derby VT (near Stansted QC) - 4.3 miles, 100 feet elevation gain

Sunday morning Brian and I headed off for a truly outstanding wood fired bagel at Fabrique de Bagel in Magog QC, about 15 miles north of our B&B.  This wood fired very fancy seeming bakery isn't in stylish downtown Montreal or Quebec or even in an upscale suburb. It's on the side of a provincial route in a rural area not ever close to any city bigger than maybe 10K people.  My breakfast sandwich was on a light crispy little roll which they called an English Muffin but didn't in nay way (other than being round) resemble what I would call an English Muffin. No matter, it was astonishingly packed with flavor from the thinly sliced ham, sharp cheddar cheese, delicate egg and a smear of Dijon mustard.  I'm pretty sure my eyes rolled back in my eyes while I was savoring it.

We then headed to Coaticook Gorge.  I learned from Brian's family the Coaticook isn't pronounced like 'coat-eh-cook' at all.  Apparently it's more like 'Quitacook' which seems bizarre to me.  Unfortunately, for us, it was closed-a-cook.  Probably because it is mud season and everything is wet and goopy.  We bounced and bounded our way back to Brian's parents on some truly dismal minor Quebec routes and had lunch with the family.  

Thankfully we did make it out of the parents house around 3 pm and went to the walking path that goes through a few parts of Newport Vermont.  We've done a mile or 2 section of it from the high school several times in the past and it's an enjoyable simple path through quiet residential and industrial areas.  Since Coaticook didn't work out, we decided to try a different section of the Newport trail system.  Starting near the hospital, there is a path which leads 5.5 miles to the Canadian border. It was clearly an old railroad.  We walked just over 2 miles of the 5.5 and it was great.  The trail hugs very close to Lake Memphremagog which spans across parts of Vermont and Quebec.  There are a lot of really big beautiful homes along this section of the lake shore and they are on big lots mostly connected by gravel roads or driveways off other quiet roads.  It was great seeing a different side of life in north east Vermont.  I can see why people would be excited to live on such a beautiful lake.

After the walk we had an excellent dinner at T bar in Newport.  This is a new 2nd concept inside of a long existing sandwich shop called Hoagies.  I had a grilled chicken sandwich and amazing sweet potato fries with a maple brown sugar dipping sauce and a Moscow mule type cocktail.  A nice end to our last full day in Vermont.

Monday morning we were at Roasters for breakfast with Brian's parents, a sister and one other person at 8 am.  Roasters is the only restaurant that Brian's parents eat at with any regularity and thankfully it's an excellent breakfast or lunch spot with lots of fresh baked goods in addition to really well made diner food.  The drive home went very well and about as fast as it ever could with almost no delays and lots of relatively high speed miles even on the non-freeway miles which make up 2/3 of the trip.  And the china hutch traveled beautifully.  We got it unloaded and returned the rental car which helped us quickly transition from travel mode to being back home.

This was probably the best and most balanced trip to Vermont so far for me.  I hope we can use it as a template for future trips.









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