September 13, 2012 Morse Maple Syrup, Montpelier, VT

We picked up our mail and left the Massa Farm. We stopped on the way out of town and John picked up a Raleigh mountain bike off Craig's list, I purchased it for him for his birthday season. Also because I backed his old bike into a tree when it was on the rack on the back of the car.  Stopped and toured the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream factory, and parked at another Harvest Host, a maple syrup farm in the mountains of Vermont outside the capital city of Montpelier.

John bargaining with John for his new used mountain bike. Ben and Jerry’s ice cream factory.

All of Ben and Jerry’s Euphoric Flavors. A couple I liked the names of, Phish Food, Chocolate Therapy,Imagine whirled peace, and Chubby Hubby. We watched a movie in the Cow over the moon theatre about the history of Ben and Jerry’s, then viewed the processing plant, then tasted ice cream. Yum.

Peace, Love and Ice Cream, the Ben and Jerry’s Cowmobile. The first one they took around the country giving out samples of their ice cream burnt up outside Columbus, Ohio. The worlds biggest baked Alaska!

Flavor graveyard. Here are a couple of retired flavors.

We drove on to Morse Farm,Maple Sugarworks. We started with a movie about maple syrup in the Woodshed Theatre. Then moved to the sugar house next door where they evaporate the syrup.

John in the woodshed theatre starting our video. There was also some great wood folk art made from unusual tree stumps and burls. Here the Elephant and the Donkey.

The first sap to run is very clear and is the best, grade A fancy. The last to run is the dark sap. The dark is the grade B or cooking syrup. The best flavor is in the clear fancy syrup. I found these maple jelly beans, made by Palmer Lane Maple in their gift shop. Along with many maple syrup products I need to have.

The bus at the Maple syrup farm. With a rug drying on the front. John becoming a S.A.P. Syrup Appreciating Person.

Patty a friend of John from when he first moved to Fort Collins now lives in Vermont and she came by with her dog Mia and visited us.  After our visit we took out our bikes and John tried out his new bike. He says it is like any other bike, you still have to pedal it.