Focht Family Blog

Nathan decided to take a drive down memory lane. On the way to Boston we stopped at a wonderful place that he used to go to as a child. Here are the kids and I showing off our ice cream…

I was holding Nathan’s ONE scoop cone. Here is Nathan when he was starting to give up…

Here is a picture of all of us under the sign out front…

The portions were so huge that my one scoop sundae took me two days to eat. It was so good the whole family decided to make Nathan take us back again before we left Massachusetts! :)

We decided to go to Kennebunkport for a night before heading to Boston.  We stayed at a very nice campground called Red Apple Campground. We found out that President Bush was in town because he was going to parachute the next morning for his birthday. We decided to drive through the town and look at everything. The campground owner showed us where to drive on the map and showed us where the Bush’s house was so we could take a look.

Here is a picture that we took of President Bush’s house…

And here is a picture of the Secret Service vehicle that was sitting where we took the picture…. :)

From there we went to the beach. Here is Nathan holding a shivering Josh. Josh had been sick the day before this. What we didn’t know at the time was that Josh was shivering because his fever was back…

I was the only one brave enough to put my feet in. However, when I took my socks off I found that I had picked up a tick while at the horses that morning. I found out accidentally that ticks do not like salt water. A few minutes after getting back in the truck from the beach, the tick came out on his own….

Unfortunately Josh’s fever did not respond to the medicine so we also got to see the ER at the hospital near Kennebunkport. :) The little stinker’s fever broke in the middle of the night so I guess we should have waited it out for a few more hours. :)

The last tour of the day was at Cabot Creamery. They have tastings of all of their cheeses once you enter the store. Josh and Timmy decided they needed to pose in the cow at the front door…

And of course we had to have the rare three headed cow…

Once again the tour starts with a movie. This one talks about the cooperative of dairy farmers that contribute to the cheese and the measures that they take to have consistency. Here is the room that the movie is shown covered in the many ribbons they have won for their cheddar cheeses…

Today they were making 50% reduced fat cheddar that was going to the west coast. The difference is that they send orange cheeses to the west coast and the cheeses on the east coast are white. The cream that they remove from the cheese to reduce the fat is used for sour cream. Here is a picture of the curds being stirred….

Here are the sour cream containers coming down the belt and being packaged together…

And lastly the boxing machine that boxes up the blocks of curds…

After this tour we were all a bit worn out and the kids were crashing from the sugar overload earlier. On the way out of Vermont we saw one of the coolest things we have seen since being on the road. Of course the unfortunate part is that I was not camera ready. As we were driving through the back roads getting back to the highway a large black animal came running out of the woods. It was a black bear!! It ran across the street in front of us and was only about 75 feet from us!! I am so sorry I couldn’t get the camera out in time. We slowed down by where it went back into the woods on the other side but I couldn’t see it to get a picture.

The dogs decided that the day had been long for them as well. As we were driving through New Hampshire I looked down to see that both of the dogs were napping and that Dory was using Tinkerbell as a pillow…

Okay… I was having an off day. Cold Hollow wasn’t pressing today so all we could do was look at the machinery and watch a video of what happens to make cider and spend LOTS of money. Their cider donuts were featured in Gourmet magazine as one of the best 4 donuts in the country. They were very good as was the cider.

On to Ben & Jerry’s… as soon as we got out of the RV the kids spotted cows!!

Here is a picture of the milk, cream, and sugar on the way in…

Once starting the tour you are lead to a room where you watch a short film about the start of the company. Here is a picture of the room…

After the film I wasn’t allowed to take pictures! :( But… they show you the process of how they mix the ingredients into the ice cream. And then you go to the tasting room where you get a big scoop of ice cream. Today was a triple caramel ice cream that is a new flavor. Everyone liked it but after eating it I didn’t have any room for more ice cream. :)

As we left the tour there was a lid that you could pose in. Here is Nathan and Samantha posing…

Of course we didn’t realize that there was a fire until we started walking back to the RV. There were 4 firetrucks at the back of the building. Here they are trying to put out whatever was on fire. Nathan thought it looked like the trash compactor…

Before going to the RV we headed to the Flavor Graveyard to see the headstones of flavors that have been discontinued. Here is my favorite headstone…

It says… “Fresh picked peaches trucked from Georgia tasted great but didn’t last, ‘Cause Georgia’s quite a-ways away & trucks don’t go that fast.”

Here is the ice cream RV. The original one burnt to the ground. I tried to talk the kids into trading RVs but they didn’t like that idea…

Well…. I didn’t read the website very well. It turns out that the cafe is only open at 8:30 in the summer season which doesn’t start until July and the first tour doesn’t start until 10:00. Since we were up and had a long list of places we wanted to go, we decided to just create bears when the store opened at 9:00 and skipped the tour. Here is my mom with the kids on the way in….

Here are the kids kissing the hearts that go into the bears…

Here is Timmy filling his dino….

Joshua chose a light blue teddy bear but was shy about pushing the pedal so I had to push it for him so I didn’t get pictures of him. Here is Samantha stuffing her pink bear…

My mom decided to pick out teddy bears for my neices. Here is Joshua helping to stuff the bear for Ashleigh…

And here is Timmy helping to stuff Meghan’s bear…