Caching in Arlington and Manchester, VT 7/6-7/2009

Monday we went out caching around Arlington and our first cache was at the local drive in ice cream and food diner. Second cache was on a back road about 1 1/2 miles off the main road along a beautiful mountain stream. Third cache on another back road on a power pole, and our fourth cache was at what we believe was a State of Vermont trout stocking farm, well anyway it was someones if it wasn't a state run facility. There was one pond there that had some huge rainbow trout in it as you can see by the pictures. Our last cache was at the 1852 Bridge at the Green covered bridge. Also located at this site was the Chapel on the Green and the Inn on Covered Bridge Green which were both lovely old buildings. Then we drove around and saw some of the local history including an old train station in East Arlington, Shaftsbury Country Store, Chittenden House, several local bed and breakfasts and a small cemetery out in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road.
Tuesday we drove up to Manchester to do one multi-cache and do some sightseeing. The cache we went there to do really turned into an adventure though. First the sightseeing as we did the cache after we walked around Manchester. Some of the sites we saw were Dellwood Cemetery which dates back to the early 1800's. We saw many many graves of Revolutionary War Veterans and many gaves that dated back to the very early 1800's. The Meeting House of the First Congregational Church, a monument to the veterans of the Spanish American War, Civil War and Revolutionary War who were from the area, The Charles Orvis Inn, The 1811 House, The Equinox Inn Circa 1769, Marsh Tavern, Bennington County Court House, Harrington's Smoked Meats & Fine Foods (home of the world's best ham sandwich), The Barnstead Inn, Ye Olde Tavern and many quaint restaurants and shops.
Now on to our cache. It was a multi-cache that had 4 parts to find the final. It started in the Dana Thompson Memorial Park and went to Hunter Park. We found the first 2 very cleverly hidden stages of the cache and we were off to the third stage which took us a few minutes to find but we finally found it under a bridge over a creek. Then off to the final stage. We got about 400' the last stage and the skies opened up and it started pouring and to make matters worse it started to thunder and lightening and we were over a 1/2 mile from the car. Well we did make it to some cover not far away, which happened to be under the roof of Hunter Arena a hockey rink, to wait the storm out as we didn't want to get any wetter. It let up after a little bit so we walked inside the rink and sat for a little while to wait the thunder out and see if the rain was going to stop. As we were sitting around one of the attendants asked us if we were from the area and we told her no and told here what had happened and that we were geocaching and she said ohhhhhhhh we have one hidden here close by and we told her that was the one we were after. Seeing as we were quite a ways from our car once it stopped raining we thought it would be better to maybe walk back to the car and then drive back in a little while as the skies still were black as night and we still could hear thunder. We made it back to the car and drove to where we left off and finally found the final stage, signed the log and replaced it as we found it as the black skies were almost upon us again and about 2 minutes after getting back to the car the wind started blowing and the thunder and lightening started again in earnest along with the pouring rain. Well that was fun and at times a little scary as we really didn't like walking through the woods in a storm......NOT the place to be at all. A fun morning...........EH?
Another of the sites we saw was Hildene The Lincoln Family Home. Robert Todd Lincoln built Hildene as a summer home at the turn of the 20th century. He was the only child of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln to survive to maturity. Robert first visited Manchester as a young man in the summers of 1863 and 1864 when he came to the Equinox Hotel with his mother and his brother Tad. He was so taken by the beauty of Vermont that some forty years later he returned to purchase 500 acres of land to build what he would call his ancestral home. The garden promontory, overlooking the Battenkill Valley, provides spectacular views of the mountains on either side and the Meadowlands 300 feet below. There is a 1,000-pipe organ, installed in the entrance hall at Hildene in 1908 as a gift from Robert Todd Lincoln to his wife, Mary, is believed to be the oldest residential pipe organ with a player attachment still in its original location and still in working order in the United States. There are 242 rolls, most of which are in good condition. It is played each day. Astronomy was a lifelong interest of Robert Todd Lincoln and he chose a high point of land northeast of the house to build his observatory. The Carriage Barn at Hildene was once used to house the Lincoln family's carriages and horses. In the welcome center is a 1928 Franklin Roadster which once belonged to Robert Todd Lincoln's daughter, Jessie (Lincoln Beckwith Johnson Randolph). She and her then husband, John Randolph, drove the car over 60,000 miles, traveling from their Virginia plantation to their homes in Washington, D.C. and New York and to Vermont to visit her daughter Peggy.
We went back into Arlington and had lunch at the local drive-in/ice cream shp where we found the cache yesterday and then it was on back to the coach for dinner and TV. Well time to say until tomorrow we love you all. Mom & Dad