As I mentioned last night, this morning we set off to Vermont to enjoy the Ben & Jerry's 2012 Winter Festival.
We were all up super early this morning to get an early start because it was going to be about a 4 and 1/2 hour car ride there. and the weather sucked first thing this morning. snow and slush and a little bit of rain. fun. Here we are at around 5:45 this morning right before setting off.
The Marsh was nice enough to take the picture for us. The trip started off a little on the slow side. It was snowing and some of the roads were a little slippery from lack of plowing. We enjoyed the four wheel drive my mother's jeep provided until we made it to the highway. or I should say Miss Jasmine enjoyed it until she got to the highway. One of the main reasons for taking a long road trip (other than free ice cream) is so that my sister jasmine, who is 17 and has her learner's driving permit, could get more practice driving so she can apply for her license.
look at that focus.
Miss Emily was a good sport about being stuck in the back seat for about 9 hours all together. at 18 she hasn't had her license long enough to be riding shotgun with a driver who only has her pemit.
The snow let up about an hour or so into the drive. maybe not even that long actually. then it rained for a little bit. then sleeted for a second. It was a lot of winter weather practice driving for jasmine. Once things chilled out we were able to relax a little bit. enjoy the radio. which was playing the 80s all day. score.
don't worry, Mom. her eyes never left the road.
We've only had one cup of coffee..where is the ice cream?
around 9:45 or so we began to get hungry and started searching for a McDonalds for breakfast. We only managed to take one wrong exit. but we did get gas and directions to a McDonalds, so technically it doesn't count as lost. Emily was so hungry the radio began speaking to her. Suddenly Richard Marx telling us he would always be right there waiting became the golden arches serenading Emily. Ace of Base and Hootie and The Blowfish serenaded her too. She was getting desperate.
and then it began to hail. the whole world was conspiring against us getting breakfast. but then we found it. We almost missed it because in our own made up version of road trip bingo we have dubbed this beauty "hipster McDonalds"
No I don't want to be red and yellow, blue really expresses the emotion
deep within my soul.
It was actually pretty nice. It's now dead to Jasmine, however, because they didn't serve lunch until 11:00 and she couldn't get any french fries. and you don't come between a girl and her fries.
Soon enough we were back on the road, into Vermont, and pulling into the Ben & Jerrys Factory. Yay!
Our first stop was to get some sugar covered snow. a.k.a snow covered in maple syrup. which is really just an excuse to eat some vermont maple syrup. then we headed inside to get our factory tour tickets which happened to be free today because of the festival. even better. this was around 12:30ish and our tour wasn't until 1:30 so we took some time to browse through the gift shop. We got super excited when we saw these ben and jerry shot glasses.
which were actually "tooth pick" holders.
After taking a quick peak around the shop we headed out to enjoy some more samples. we were, after all, there for the ice cream. and cheese. Oh and the coffee too. Green Mountain Coffee had a booth all set up. Emily and I both got the French Toast flavored coffee. It was delicious. We tried some of the new greek frozen yogurt too. and while we both agreed it wasn't bad, it wouldn't replace a pint of the real stuff.
My favorite discovery of the day was this gem.
Cinnamon Cereal Swirl Ice Cream
It tastes exactly like Cinnamon Toast Crunch, which just happens to be one of my favorite cereals. I will be looking for these pints in the store. and we decided that it should be eaten for breakfast. it can replace cereal completely.
We sampled some more tasty treats from Lake Champlain Chocolates and Cabot Cheese. and then we checked out all the ice scuptures and such. OH! and we also played a scavenger hunt for stamps! which was great because the prize for getting all five stamps was a free ice cream cone. I got Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream. FANTASTIC.
We went on the tour, which was great. much better than the Cabot Cheese Factory Tour that Emily and I went on last fall. (Sorry, Cabot Cheese, it's true). The Tour ends with a trip to the Flavor Room where we got free samples of the Flavor of the Day, which was Milk & Cookies. Are you getting the impression we ate alot of ice cream?? Good. because we did.
After the tour we did what any other 24 year old, 18 year old, and 17 year old would do at an ice cream festival. We got our faces painted with rainbows and got our picture taken with a cow.
You wish you were this cool.
Then before we knew it we were back on the road to drive another 4 and 1/2 hours home. It was a long trip, but it was so much fun. I definately think a return trip is a must next year.
I'm also glad to be home. 9 hours in a car is alot for anybody. and I missed my kids. They didn't miss me. They went to my mother's and ate Doritos.
I don't think that I'm the type of person that could road trip all the time. I get a little claustrophobic. But with my sister, Emily, leaving to go to Vermont for college in the fall and Jasmine headed to college the year after, I was grateful to spend time with them. As I've said before and will say many times again, Life is Busy. Taking a day to do something silly like eat ice cream all day may seem crazy to some people, but it was a perfect sisters day for us. and really? who isn't grateful for Ben & Jerry's?
Thanks for reading!
Lana
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