Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium
We visited the Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium today in St. Johnsbury, VT. The museum has been operating since 1889, and is a bit of a museum piece itself. It shows what this type of museum would have been like a hundred years ago, with only small modifications to the displays. We also took in two sessions at the planetarium.
Dog Mountain Chapel
When Tammy was researching our Vermont Trip she ran across a place called Dog Mountain just outside of St. Johnsbury, VT. Dog Mountain is a 150 acre private mountaintop spot created by Stephen Huneck and his wife Gwen, as a place for people and dogs to enjoy themselves. Unfortunately we don’t have Lucky with us on this trip, but we still wanted to visit Dog Mountain to check it out.
One of the special places on Dog Mountain is the Chapel. In the Chapel people place photos and notes on the walls to honor the dogs that they have had to say goodbye to. It was an amazing spot, and when Mazie took a pen and put a note on the wall for Chase it made me shed a fresh tear for our great dog that we had to say goodbye to in 2018.
Double IPA Lemon Cello from Hill Farmstead Brewery. Wow, unique and good. 🍋
We had a super coffee and chocolate stop at Rabble-Rouser in Montpelier today. First time I’ve ever been served a coffee in a mason jar with a lid. Worked well except for driving.
We saved the Mona Lisa in 56m 16s at the Greatest Caper Escape Room in Montpelier. Austin, the owner, has created a great room and makes sure everyone has a great time. 👏 Room 35!
Family selfie at the Vermont State House in Montpelier.
Connected Device Disclosures for Rental Properties
We’ve been staying almost exclusively in Airbnb properties for a while now. We enjoy the unique accommodations and the ability to stay in locations that are not served by traditional hotels.
As connected smart home devices like cameras and sensors get more popular it is common to find them in rental properties. I understand why owners want to have connected devices. It almost certainly helps them manage the property. We have some cameras at our cabin so I can keep tabs on the property when we are not there.
Given the frequent appearance of connected devices I’d like to see properties disclose what is in use and why. The disclosure could list:
- Device type: camera, thermostat, speaker, sensor.
- Manufacturer: who makes the device.
- Model: what is the specific device.
- Location: where in the property is the device located.
- Access: list every entity (person, management company, service provider) that has access to the device and what they can do remotely.
A disclosure would help give peace of mind to the people staying in the property while still providing the benefits to the owner. It would help answer questions when you see a device that is clearly online and is unclear what it is there for.
Vermont Road Trip Log: Day 8, Saturday
We are dedicating this day to our friend Ellen. Ellen is from this area of Vermont and most of the activities today are great suggestions from her!
Weather: Nice morning. Hot and humid in afternoon. Rain showers during outdoor theater, got plenty wet. Rain into the evening.
- 7:30a: Depart the Schoolhouse.
- 9:35a: Breakfast at Skinny Pancakes
- Shopping in Woodstock: Woody’s Mercantile, Unicorn, Collective: The Art of Craft, Vermont Eclectic Company, Woodstock Gallery, Clover, Gillingham’s General Store,
- Quick visit to Marsh - Billings - Rockefeller National Historical Park.
- Coffee stop at Abracadabra Coffee. Iced coffee, cans of cold press, and beans for home.
- 1:07p: Simon Pearce Gallery
- 1:49p: King Arthur Flour Company
- 2:30p: Depart for Glover, VT.
- 4:00p: Bread & Puppet Theatre
- 6:00p: Drive to Treehouse, defer check-in due to rain.
- 6:45p Dinner at Salt Bistro
- 8:35p: Back to Treehouse and unload in the rain, up two flights of stairs, in the dark.
- 9:40p: Treehouse doesn’t have WiFi. Went to enable Mobile Hotspot on my iPhone and to my surprise my new AT&T plan doesn’t support that. Spent 30-mins with customer support fixing that.
Jump to day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 of Vermont Road Trip.
Bread and Puppet Theater
I don’t know if we would have ever found Bread and Puppet Theater without a recommendation from our friend Ellen but it was well worth the additional drive to Glover, VT. Bread and Puppet has been putting on political theater since 1974 in this location. The performances feature funny and serious skits, people on stilts and giant flags, and of course puppets of all sizes and shapes.
The “stage” and the band warming everyone up for the show.
A flag performance.
The turkey skit was the funniest of the show.
Giant puppet that was part of the Domestic Resurrection Circus after the main event.
Mazie and I got some bread with a heavy garlic butter shmear.
Why do they serve bread with the theater?
“We give you a piece of bread with the puppet show because our bread and theater belong together. For a long time the theater arts have been separated from the stomach. Theater was entertainment. Entertainment was meant for the skin. Bread was meant for the stomach. The old rites of baking, eating and offering bread were forgotten. The bread became mush. We would like you to take your shoes off when you come to our puppet show or we would like to bless you with the fiddle bow. The bread shall remind you of the sacrament of eating.” — Peter Schumann
I also enjoyed the spirit of the Cheap Art Manifesto.
