We were sitting in a park in Waterbury having lunch when I got an email from a friend that she was going to vacation in Vermont the end of September.  She gave me a list of places on her walking tour, and since we planned to go in that direction right after lunch, we decided to scope out a few.  One of the places, Waitsfield, is the location of several Mad River trails.   
When we drove into Waitsfield there was a covered bridge right off the main street. There were kids all over it and some were jumping into the river far below.  These are sure lucky kids to have this kind of summer fun in their town. 

 



  
  

After leaving Alexandria Bay, we continued along the St. Lawrence River until the most northern part of New York, where we turned east towards Vermont. North of Alexandria Bay we finally started seeing RV’ers and that’s probably because of the Canadian border crossings in the area.  We drove down the very scenic middle of Lake Champlain on North and South Hero Islands and stayed at an RV park on the southern island.    

The bridge from NY to Vermont at the northern end of Lake Champlain

Although Burlington was out of the way, we needed to get some things done today.  However, out of 8 things we tried to do, we struck out 8 times.  No kidding.  Burlington is really beautiful though. 
After striking out in Burlington, we headed to Newport on the border to Canada.  I found out that if you have your GPS set to “fastest route plus no highways” then that means you can get routed on dirt roads.  No problem.  Dirt roads in Vermont are better than their paved roads any day.  You would not believe the condition of their roads.  The absolute worst ever, anywhere.  Cold winters are no excuse because the roads in New York are fantastic.  Probably the best.
Tomorrow Quebec City.  We like to drive to big cities on Sundays because there’s less traffic.  For some reason, driving to Quebec makes me a lot more nervous than driving in Mexico.  Plus, we don’t have any Canadian currency and have been told we can’t get any at the border on a Sunday. Banks will no longer sell you foreign currency unless you have an account with them. Even if you have cash.  We thought we would find a branch of our bank up here since it’s probably the biggest bank in the US but not so.