The sign to Vermont on the side of the highway came so unexpectedly that I wasn’t able to get a picture. Luckily, they had one at the Welcome Center rest stop. 48 States down, 2 to go!
My mom and Wendy were there too
Three years ago my mom started planning to go to Vermont with her sisters. Their mother used to go to a family home called “Riverside” in Vermont every summer. Their family had last visited there in 1967 and the sisters thought this would be a fun place for their annual sister’s retreat. It turned out that Wendy was the only sister who was able to go and since I was nearby in New York City, I was able to join them, too.
My great grandfather was in the military so they moved around a lot with my grandma. Since their family vacation spot was the most consistent place they visited, it was where my grandma considered home. I hadn’t heard that until we got there.
We were following the instructions from google maps taking us to the address my mom had in her email when we drove past a grey building. “That’s it!” Wendy shouted. She recognized the house that was now a school. We pulled into the parking lot. We knew we would be touring later, but needed to take a moment to acknowledge that we had arrived.
We continued up the hills through the trees, past the house that Wendy said looked like the other house up the hill where the relatives also lived that looked like Hilltop (that was the name of the house. We later learned it was the house) to the cabin where we were staying. Minutes later, Annie pulled up and filled in the gaps of a story that had lost some pieces in translation.
Annie’s grandmother was an older sister to my grandmother’s father. So Annie, my mom and my aunt are second cousins! They’d figured it out when my mom and Wendy’s cousin Susie had visited earlier. The houses had been sold and the relics inside were passed down through the family. When Annie’s mom passed away, she and her siblings were left with some property and lots of furniture and memorabilia that needed a home. They built a cabin next to Hilltop called Hillside, which they used to store the sentimental furniture and memories and they all shared it as a vacation home. They graciously let us stay there for our visit. We had a great time picking though the old photo albums finding pictures what life was like before cars and pictures of my grandma holding a baby (we assume to be my mom) and reading stories of people visiting. With the help of the family tree on the wall, we were starting to piece together all of the characters in the stories.
Annie stayed and chatted with us for a bit, gave us advice about the restaurants in town and agreed to meet at Riverside the next day.
The living room
The view from the porch (the camera never seemed to be able to capture how pretty it was)
The view from the bedroom
We found an advertisement for Riverside.
The people in the photo are posed like the sculpture (which is also in the photo)
I’ve heard stories about my grandfather loving these old bikes my whole life
There is a guest book where people have signed their names and written little notes when they have visited. We found the page from the visit in 1967
A recipe on the refrigerator
The next morning we had some time before we went to meet Annie at Riverside, so we drove to the mountain we could see from the cabin to check out the hotel.
The view was spectacular
Especially with all the fall colors.
Since it wasn’t busy, we toured a room. This was the view from the balcony.
