 | A WRITER'S WIT |  C. Arthur |
MY JOURNEY OF STATES is a series in which I relate my sixty-year quest to visit all fifty states in the U.S. In each post I tell of my relationship to that state, whether brief or long, highlighting personal events. I include the year of each state's entry into the union and related celebrations. I hope you enjoy my journey as much as I have. This is the thirty-sixth post of fifty.
Vermont (2003)
In 2003, I applied for entrance into the distinguished Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. In addition to filling out a long form I was asked to include a writing sample. I secured airfare and accommodations immediately to lock in good prices for Ken and myself. Months later, I received the news that I had not been accepted. Ken and I decided to make a vacation of it and go anyway. After all, we were staying in nearby Middlebury, not on the Bread Loaf campus itself. The conference opened its doors each evening to the public for literary events, and we attended a reading by Charles Baxter and one by Sigrid Nunez. I continued to apply to the conference, and I was ultimately accepted in 2006 but turned it down because of ill health. At any rate, back to 2003, Ken and I enjoyed traveling throughout the state of Vermont, gazing upon verdant farmland, the White Mountains thick with hardwoods. It would be, for us, a grand place to live . . . for about five months out of the year.
During our twelve-day visit we took a shoreline cruise on Lake Champlain, spent time at Fort Ticonderoga and Fort St. Frédéric, both located over the border in New York, and visited Justin Smith Morrill State Historic Site in Strafford, Shelburne Museum, the state house in Montpelier, and the Bennington Museum. I wish the visits I made to every state could be this leisurely and comprehensive.
Vermont is the fourteenth state and celebrated its bicentennial in 1991.
During our twelve-day visit we took a shoreline cruise on Lake Champlain, spent time at Fort Ticonderoga and Fort St. Frédéric, both located over the border in New York, and visited Justin Smith Morrill State Historic Site in Strafford, Shelburne Museum, the state house in Montpelier, and the Bennington Museum. I wish the visits I made to every state could be this leisurely and comprehensive.
Vermont is the fourteenth state and celebrated its bicentennial in 1991.
Historical Postcards & Trunk Decals
If you missed earlier My Journey of States posts, please click on a link:
1-Kansas 13. New Jersey 25. Michigan
2-Oklahoma 14. Delaware 26. Wisconsin
3-Texas 15. New York 27. Minnesota
4-Louisiana 16. Connecticut 28. Iowa
5-Missouri 17. Colorado 29. Hawaii
6-Illinois 18. Arkansas 30. Georgia
7-Indiana 19. California 31. S. Carolina
8-Ohio 20. Florida 32. N. Carolina
9-Pennsylvania 21. Mississippi 33. Alabama
10-West VA 22. New Mexico 34. Kentucky
11-Maryland 23. Tennessee 35. Massachusetts
12. Virginia 24. Arizona
NEXT TIME: My Book World, Sally Field's Memoir, In Pieces
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