Completing the Vermont 251 Club
Our love for travel and exploration came at early ages for Ann and I. Ann's family made many trips up the Maine coast for summer vacations, from their home in Taunton, Mass. My family was like a band gypsies. In the late 60's to early 70's, we followed my dad all over the state, as he helped build the state's infrastructure. Between Ann and I, we had already been to 90% of the towns in Vermont. We didn't start checking them off until we visited them together as club members. That was our only hard and fast rule.
Thanks to Covid, our desire to join the 251 Club came about in September of 2020. We were celebrating a late wedding anniversary in Newport. As soon as we joined, we hit the road exploring the NEK. One of our fondest memories is kayaking Lewis Pond and meeting Chief Don Stevens ; Chief of the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk-Abenaki Nation. Our personal encounter with Don and his wife encouraged us to explore more of the NEK, including Warren's Gore and Warner's Grant. Our 2008 FJ Cruiser made the perfect vehicle
We quickly learned that town signs in the 251 club were popular destinations for photo ops, but sometimes elusive. Ann made it her mission to locate as many signs as we could find. I would pull over, and Ann would take pictures with my phone. I had fun creating a photo album that included the GPS coordinates. This is not an exhaustive list, but here is link to that photo album. Once you click it, scroll up to find the map and it's coordinates
This picture made it on CBS Good Morning Amreica in 2022We enjoyed using the Vermont State Parks as our base camp for many of our adventures. We also used remote campsites within the Green Mountain National Forest. Our nights were spent by the campfire recalling the adventures and writing blog entries. Here is a link to one of our adventures
Remote camping. Green. Mountain National Forest, Granville. 10/11/2020Our adventures caught the curiosity of family and friends, so we included them in the fun, and used their homes as base camps as well. Our friends, Mike and Kimberly helped us finish off the NEK from Newark Pond, while our brother and sister in-law invited us on a shire town inn tour from their home in Wells. We also did a covered bridge tour with them. They are now members of the club.
Our final covered bridge tour with the in-laws We tried to recreate in anytown that had water, hiking and biking trails, or camping. Coffee and sweet treats are a traveling staple for us, so we stopped at country stores for that and some good conversation. We found diners to be a great place to stop and refuel as well. Fun loving banter with the servers and locals became the norm, and part of our conversation down the road.
One of our favorite diners
Weather we could recreate or not, we always enjoyed taking back roads in every town, and finding unexpected scenic treasures. We documented our visits with photos of every town and added them to our 251 Club page, along with any blog entries I may have written. Here is a link to my blog site.
We completed our first 251 Club tour by checking Vernon off our list, on February 19, 2024. There was no real planning and we made little fanfare about it. By July we were sailing out of Malletts Bay in Colchester and making memories for our second tour around the state. In October we put our bicycles on Amtrak's Vermonter and spent the day exploring Brattleboro before heading home to Swanton the next day.
This time our goal is pretty much the same, but we will be dropping hand painted 251 rocks in every town and finding new places in old towns. We may even ride our bicycles across the state, via the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail. No matter what we do, or how we do it, we will always be taking in the beauty of this state and engaging with the dynamic characters that make this state so interesring
Lamoille Valley Rail Trail, Fairfield
Rock on n see ya out there!
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