Saturday’s weather looked promising, for once. The sky was blue, and mostly cloudy but that’s better than solid overcast and drizzle any day. We fortified ourselves, and headed for the Festival. Tunbridge is about 10 miles or so south of Chelsea, which we’d been through several times already so we headed back over the hills and then down Vermont Route 110 to Tunbridge. Here are some shots from the GoPro on the windshield on the way down to Tunbridge.
Once we arrived there, it seemed the Sheep and Wool Festival, which is an annual event, had caught everyone by surprise, as the town was overrun with illegally parked cars, several miles of wooden barricades forbidding travel down this street or that, miles of yellow crime scene tape, and a snaking, twisting line of Volvos, Prius’es, and Jeeps running down off the road, through a field, past some gate keepers handing out programs, and then into a roped off area that would be acting as the parking lot. Since, even in line, we were about a half mile from the fairgrounds proper, I wanted to drop Mom and Melissa off closer to the fair. We asked how to do that. Everyone seemed confused by our request, starting with the Gate Keeper.
“You don’t want to park?
“No, I just want to drop off these ladies, among which is my 93 year old mother, and then get the hell out of here.”
“Ok, go down this lane here to that guy down there in the orange vest and tell him, and he’ll tell you where to drop ’em off.”
Duly noted. I squirelled out of line, and bumped down along the edge of the parking lot to the guy in the orange vest. The guy in the orange vest, one of Vermont’s Finest, was equally befuddled.
“You don’t want to park?”
“No, I just want to drop off these ladies, among which is my 93 year old mother, and then get the hell out of here.”
“Ok, go back along this lane to that lady in the white sweater and she’ll direct you.”
Short pause for dramatic effect. . .
“She sent me here.”
“She did?”
“Yes.”
At this point, I was looking around for the festival organizers, Larry, his brother Darrell and his other brother Darrell.
“Hmmmm…OK, then , watcha want to do is go LEFT here, and drop of the ladies, and then come BACK long this road, and go out thatta-way.” he said, pointing with his flashlight back along the line of cars snaking down the one-way lane into the place. With the forethought of a true Vermonter, the ingress road and exit road were the same 1-lane cowpath. No one’s allowed out until everybody’s IN.
Forty minutes later, I was free of the place, and headed north along Vermont Route 110 once again. Everytime the sun came out from behind the clouds, I stopped and took some snapshots, even managing to get a nice little covered bridge.
As I got closer up to Chelsea, I even spotted a second bridge. Took some shots, and then up through there and on to Washington, and then East Barre, and how could I resist.
The road towards Washington climbed up the ridge, twisting and turning before coming out at the top and then sliding back down the other side, through Washington, and then before you know it, I was in East Barre.
I made it all the way to East Barre and then turned around and headed back to the Fairgrounds, but there was no way I was going to actually DRIVE back in. I stopped next to the church up in town and texted Melissa that I was there.
