Overnight in VT

This weekend we went to Vermont to check out the fall leaves. It's about a 4 hour drive so we decided to leave after my soccer game on Saturday morning (that's where I had an AWESOME sliding save--Mom and Dad wish they would have taped it!). After the game we drove up to East Hartford where we went to Cabella's to shop for Dad's birthday present. We spent about 3 hours there! It was such a cool place! They had tents for us to play in, a shooting gallery, fish tank, and stuffed animals everywhere! Once we finished there, we headed up to VT. We got to our hotel at about 5pm and checked in. From there we went to have dinner at a restaurant called "The Back Behind"-- a bar-b-que place that used to be "back behind" another building (it's not anymore). After dinner, we went back to our hotel and changed into our bathing suits so we could hit the pool! The pool was outside and was heated to 96 degrees so it was perfect in the chilly 30 degree weather! After swimming for about an hour, it was time to hit the sack. The next morning, we got up, checked out, and headed to a restaurant called "Sugar and Spice". They had the BEST pancakes!! I ate an entire half order of silver dollar pancakes (it was HUGE!), and about half of Dad's order of "maple-walnut" and "sugar & spice" pancakes--plus bacon! Once we finished eating, we drove over to Pico Mountain. At Pico, during the "off season" they have a place open called "adventure land". Adventure Land has a mini-golf course, a rock climbing wall, a trampoline type bouncy thing (yes, that's the technical term) and alpine slides. At first, it looked like we might not get to go down the slide because the line for the ski lift wasn't moving. But once inside to buy our tickets we learned that the line had stopped because it had started snowing on top of the mountain and they had to be sure that it stopped to let people continue to ride--which it did. The ski lift ride was interesting. It was REALLY cold and pretty windy and we didn't have hats and gloves. Mommy rode up with Emerson and I rode with Dad. Once at the top, we switched partners to ride the slide down. It was SO fun! If it hadn't been so cold, we would have gone again!! We headed from Pico to Belmont for the "Cider Days" fair--a really small little town with an even smaller "festival"--but well worth the drive for the hot apple cider! We even got to pick out our Halloween Pumpkins there! Once we finished looking around in Belmont, we started to head back to the highway. We made a stop for lunch and another stop to check out the Vermont Country Store (where Dad bought us each a treat that we picked out--I picked a magic duck and Em picked a candy necklace). It was a nice drive home from there. Dad bought 2 "Interstate Bingo" cards so we had something to do on the drive home, but it ended up entertaining him and Mom the longest. :) When Mom and Dad asked us what our favorite part of our trip was, we both told them that the Alpine Slides and the pool were tied for 1st.