DAY 13 - FROM FLOUR TO IVY

Drove up to Norwich, VT to visit the King Arthur Flour Company.  Check out their website on www.kingarthurflour.com.  It has recipes and lots of great information.  

The store is unbelievable.  Anything you would want to have in your kitchen for baking can be found in this store (and probably on line too). 

The displays were great and I saw at least several dozen items I wanted to buy. Decided to hold off until just before we leave Vermont before loading up.  Many, many Christmas gift ideas going through my head from his store.

I am a Food Network addict.  Ina Garten uses espresso powder when she makes anything chocolate.  I could never find "espresso powder" so substituted espresso instant coffee.  Now I know where to find it and I'll be bringing some home at the end of the summer!

I checked out their cooking classes they hold every weekend. The July and August weekend classes were full.  They have summer camp for kids during the week in July and they also hold three or four-day cooking schools.   I’m wait listed for Yeast Breads: The Basics and Beyond on a Sunday in August.  We’ll see if it comes through. 

Since I’m not sure where we are going to be in September I can’t plan ahead and sign up then.  The weekends are open in September and they have all kinds of classes from pizza making to sourdough breads, gluten-free baking….you name it.  It’s all on their website.

We had sandwiches made with their freshly baked bread.   The pastries were tantalizing but held off until we finished our sandwiches and then didn’t want any…..thank God.   In a few weeks they will be finished remodeling and opening up a much larger area to eat. 

I love these old buildings dating back to the 1700's.  Feels like home!

We headed over to Hanover NH to walk around Dartmouth College.  It is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution.  Dartmouth is the smallest school in the Ivy League.

The college admits students on a need-blind basis without consideration of financial ability to pay.  Students from families with combined income of less than $75,000 are not charged tuition.   Beginning in 2008 they replaced student loans with scholarships and grants but have re-introduced financial aid packages in the 2011-2012 year.

According to the Dartmouth website, the college guarantees to meet 100% of each student's demonstrated need for each of their four years of undergraduate study.

It is a beautiful campus and if it weren’t 92 degrees out……we would have walked around more.  As it was, we spent about a half hour walking around the block of a section of the campus.

The college is on the quarter system which means the school is open all year and students go to school three out of the four quarters a year.  There were lots of students walking around the campus.  These buildings face the Campus Green.

Again with the 1828 - not sure if these are dorms or classrooms.  The buildings are all so beautiful.

Walking along the street with many fraternity houses were these two - Chinese Language House and Native American House.

This is the Sherman Fairchild Science Center.  Way back, on my father's side (1700's), the Fairchilds and the Bloods married.  In fact the person who wrote the genealogy of the Blood family was a Fairchild.  They originated in Rutland, VT (where, co-incidentally my mother was born many years later).    I need to get on Ancestry.com to see where this all may fit in.  It's like a puzzle.

These pianos are everywhere.  I saw a Liberace-styled piano with glued crystal “diamonds” at King Arthur Flour.  Thought it was for their local entertainment but found two more on the Dartmouth campus.

It’s Hands On Pianos and Hopkins Center for the Arts is celebrating its 50^th anniversary with this community project.  Love the artistry done by local artists.  

They are available to anyone who wants to sit down and play.   The Placards provide an address of an interactive website where people can upload photos and videos of themselves playing the pianos.  What a cool project!

Well, it was getting late so we headed back to Ascutney.  Drove down through Lebanon NH then crossed the Connecticut River back over to Vermont.  It was, as usual, a beautiful ride home.

IT WAS ANOTHER GREAT DAY IN VERMONT....AND NEW HAMPSHIRE!