Vermont is for Mothers pt. 1

...and lovers, kids, friends, pets, moose, etc...anyone who really enjoys a fall-tastic drive through the foliage. Last week, my friend and I took our annual fall pilgrimage to The Vermont Country Store and Manchester. It's a bit of a drive, but let me show you why it's worth your while. Here is the first of my posts dedicated to the Green (but currently multi-colored) Mountain State.

Purveyors of the Practical and Hard to Find

The Vermont Country Store puts the sundry in 'various in sundry'. This place is crawling with sundries. It feels like Mr. Olsen's Mercantile Shop.

Clean up in style.

Scrum-diddly-umptious candy store. Willy Wonka would be tipping his velvety top hat in approval. Rows and rows of glass jars filled with candy. I'm a big fan of anything you have to scoop out into little bags so that put me in the right place.

They also have tons of free samples of cheese, dips, jams, jellies, common crackers etc. If you don't mind crowds dipping en masse, I don't see why not you couldn't fill up here and skip lunch.

One thing that caught my eye was brown bread in a can... and despite my friends assurance that this was totally normal, the concept of baked goods in can seems to be going against nature. Call me olde fashioned...or new fangled... but I just can't wrap my brain around that one.

The Country Store ain't afraid of a little controversy. Here is proof that they are 100% behind the Right to Dry campaign.

(For even more VCS controversy...or should I say 'scandal'... check this out.)


In the apothecary section you can buy balms, ointments, soaps, perfumes (like the ever popular Ben-Hur and Wind Song) and other hard to find beauty items.

...and toys, toys, toys. Rock 'em, sock 'em robots, potato guns, squirting nickels, and loads of other classic toys that are hard to find. Smurfy.

You could spend hours in hear browsing around. Don't forget to check out the discounted section upstairs. But beware, order something from their catalog and you will be getting a new one in the mail every other week. They are fun to look through, though.

There is also another shop across the street that sells some other Vermonty items as well as some delicious fudge. (Sorry, the name escapes me right now, but you can't miss it).