Day 4: September 27, 2015 Moon Over New Hampshire Comment via blog

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Breakfast was at the Skinny Pancake (which is code for crepe joint) in downtown Montpelier. They source as much as they can locally and that includes draft beer (although I didn't have any). The thing on my plate is called "Blues for Breakfast" and it's described as "Local ham and egg with the world famous Bayley Hazen blue cheese" The cheese is even more famous now than it was because I had never heard of it and now I'm a fan. Quite tasty and a very cool restaurant.

The Skinny Pancake is just a couple of blocks from the capitol. Of course, it's also just a few blocks from the edge of town. This is not a very big place. I knew that the capitol would be closed today but walked to it anyway to get some daytime photos. In fact, I walked right up to the front door to get a picture of Ethan Allen who captured Fort Ticonderoga and all those cannons.

I hadn't expected the Vermont State Museum to be closed and I was rather disappointed when I found out.

I'm sure I'd have spent time walking around Montpelier even if the museum had been open but I'll claim that I spent a little extra. I somehow found it encouraging that local hardware stores cash in on the autumn leaves along with the motels and restaurants. It's possible that Montpelier has the highest per capita number of world famous things I've not yet heard of in the country. I'd have loved to have checked out world famous Charlie-O's but they weren't open yet. The Three Penny Taproom was open so they get two pictures. Actually they get three because I just had to zoom in on one of their more boastful plaques.

Several bridges cross over the North Branch of the Winooski River in Montpelier. Here's a picture of one from one that I'm posting simply because I like it.

I left Montpelier on US-2 then pulled over after just a few miles to check out this covered bridge. It is a rare example of a privately owned bridge built by a farmer, William Martin, to connect adjacent fields. While I was there, a group of three women asked me to take their photo and I learned they lived nearby but hadn't known of the bridge before spotting it on today's Sunday drive. I saw them again about twenty miles down the road. In the town of Danville, some organization was selling apple pies and a fellow stood in the street pitching them to passing motorists. I'd have liked to buy a pie but I couldn't possibly handle a whole one so drove on by. I didn't even get a picture of the pieman which I truly regret. Not too far out of town, I was given a chance to partially compensate when I pulled over at a scenic overlook. The near view was a pretty but unspectacular green field. The real scenery was the purple mountains in the distance. A SUV was parked there and from it a woman was selling "whoopie pies". I soon learned that they're kind of like Little Debbie snacks if Little Debbies were made by someone like Martha Stewart. Not only were these made by someone like Martha Stewart, the one I bought contained maple syrup from trees on her family's nearby farm. The ladies from the bridge pulled is as I was walking back to my car and we chatted a bit. With more room -- and more mouths -- they had purchased a apple pie in Danville and were now going to add a few whoopie pies to the mix. Ah, finding history and baked goodness in your own backyard.

My home for the night was room #1 at the nearly perfect Littleton Motel in Littleton, New Hampshire. They've been serving tourists since 1948 and it's easy to see why. Nice place and nice people in a nice town.

Something rather rare occurred tonight. When our moon appears as a complete circle, it's called a full moon. The moon's closest approach to Earth is called its perigee. A lunar eclipse is when the Earth's shadow blocks the Sun's light from reaching the moon. A full moon happening at the same time as perigee has been given the name "super moon" because the moon appears quite large. Some people have taken to calling a simultaneous full moon, perigee, and eclipse a "blood moon" but that's based on a couple of guy's interpretation of some Biblical stuff. I'm going with "super moon eclipse".

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