Upstate New York Travels

Afterward, we went into their bookstore, purchased a book on Vermont history, and a small cookbook about cooking with maple syrup. While we were there, we learned that the gravesite of Robert Frost was very close and went to find it.

Further on we reached Putney town and located the family home of John Humphrey Noyes (1811-1886). Raised by a deeply religious family and after having experienced a revelation at a revival meeting, he began to believe in Christ’s Second Coming, and that people could now be considered free of sin, thus becoming “Perfectionists”. He went on to establish the Oneida Community, which I will get into later when we visit there. Now the property is owned by a land trust company.

We headed further into Putney and went to the Putney Mountain Winery, for a wine tasting. They did not sell wines from grapes but other fruits. So we did a sweet tasting: Rhubarb wine, and liquors of honey, maple, cassis, and chocolate. We opted to buy a bottle of rhubarb blush wine and one bottle of maple liqueur.

Then we went back through Bennington. On the way, I saw a deer at the edge of a huge green field. It wagged its white tail in joy and shook its neck, happy to have the entire meadow to itself.

As we headed to Saratoga Springs we hit heavy rain. It was so strong and fell so hard we were reduced to going very slow. For the next two nights we would be staying at The Batcheller Mansion Inn. It is a beautiful three-story Victorian B&B. We got the Amelia room that was at the front of the house on the second story and had a rounded bathroom down a carpeted hall.

After going to the Boca Bistro restaurant for dinner, which you can read the review here, we headed back to roam through the public areas of the house. Since we were the only ones in the hotel that night, we were able to set up our laptops in the formal living room and do some writing, seen in the photo below.