Burlington, Vermont

We enjoyed a quiet day in Burlington today. The kids worked on homework all morning and part of the afternoon. It was a beautiful Indian summer day with sunny skies and temperatures in the 70s. At 3:00 we put on our swim suits and headed down to the beach connected to the campground on Lake Champlain. Apparently the Adirondacks are one of the oldest mountain ranges around – 500 million to a billion years old. All those years of erosion have produced some great sand beaches on Lake Champlain. As you can see from the picture, the beach is very shallow and even 200 feet offshore the water was only waist deep. Although the swim was brisk, it felt great on a warm end of summer afternoon.

We rinsed off and headed into Burlington to enjoy a cup of hot chocolate and do some people watching. With three colleges in town and a vibrant “downtown” area, things were hopping. The kids bought postcards for their collections before we made our way back to the campground to barbecue chicken. Teressa and I went for a half hour bike ride before dinner along the lake. Burlington has over 15 miles of dedicated bike paths along the shore of Lake Champlain, making for a very relaxing ride. Given the nice weather, there were all kinds of people running and biking.

Our campground neighbors from New Hampshire provided us a four page list of things to do along the east coast before they checked out yesterday. They tend to like the same types of places we do, so it will be very helpful. We also ran into another motor home with Montana plates, this time from Helena. I went over to talk with them, but they are actually from Colorado. Everywhere we go there are motor homes registered in Missoula or Helena. Apparently someone has a business that legally allows out of state people to register their vehicles in Montana. It must save money, which seems ironic since my uncle always used to register his RV outside Montana because the state taxes were so high. My how the world changes!