Focht Family Blog

While Nathan was at work the kids were at play! :) We were actually getting a lot of schoolwork done but after school was done each day the kids wanted to go to the pool. Here is a view of Lake Champlain from the pool…

The kids were all over the place so this is the best picture I got with all three of them in the same frame…

Samantha and Timmy were determined to figure out how to do a hand stand in the water. This was the best that I could get of Samantha. She isn’t having a lot of luck figuring it out because she is trying to do it one handed so she can plug her nose with the other hand…

Timmy was having a bit more success…

One of the wonders of nature that Timmy found going to the pool one day was a snake. We still aren’t sure where his home was although Timmy did later find a small hole near the back of our RV…

I don’t think it was poisonous at least. Samantha and I studied plants in science this week so we were also able to find examples of each of the types of plants we studied while walking throughout the campground. It is so nice to be able to show her what we learn about because it really reinforces the lessons. :)

Nathan and Blake were doing business until Thursday. Thursday we headed up to Burlington and found a really nice campground on the Lake Champlain islands called Apple Island Resort. It is a beautiful campground that has a nice pool and jacuzzi, paved roads, lots of activities (although we haven’t done any of them). Blake got a park model for the night in the campground and we rented a minivan so we could go out and enjoy the day on Friday before Blake left. Since we couldn’t check-in until later we stopped at Lake Champlain Chocolates to take a tour. Unfortunately we found out the tour was sitting in one room and decided the kids would not enjoy it so my mom and I did some shopping and then we went to lunch. While there I bought some dark chocolate salted caramels and wished I had bought more.

On Friday morning we started out at Cold Hollow Cider Mill for cider donuts. The kids decided to pose in a sign…

After the cider mill we went shopping for cheese and chocolate at a shopping center down the road that had a Cabot Creamery store and a Lake Champlain Chocolate store. At the chocolate store I bought all of the dark chocolate salted caramels they had! :) Mom was thrilled that they had a Cabot store because she loved the Vintage Choice and Wicked Sharp cheeses that she bought at the Cabot tour and she hasn’t been able to find them in any of the stores.

The next stop was Ben & Jerry’s to take the tour again. Nathan loved the sample that day because it was his favorite flavor… Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. Next we went to lunch and headed back to the campground to use the pool.

Our first stop in Vermont was a campground called Kampersville that was supposed to be nice. We got in on Sunday. When I hooked up the box was full of spiders. Strike one. We couldn’t get satellite but they had cable… however it was only a few channels. Strike two. We walked across a busy street to get dinner at their cafe and the food was extremely greasy and the place was hot. Strike three. I thought we would stick it out because it was only a few days. However… Monday morning I took the kids to the playground which was right behind the sewage dumping area. Strike four. Then I decided to take them to the pool after lunch. The one pool had what looked like vomit next to it and no one seemed concerned at all. Five strikes was all I could take! Plus the staff was extremely rude every time I had to deal with them.

Thankfully my wonderful husband drove around after his business was done for the day and found us another campground that was right across from Lake Champlain about 20 miles away named 10 Acres Campground. It was a small campground that only had 30 amp but the owners were extremely nice, the pool was clean, we had satellite, and most important a view with a breeze! :)

The first picture I took was of the kids sitting in front of the RV enjoying the breeze looking at the fishing pond…

Here is a view of the lake from the front of the RV…

And here is a picture of the fishing pond in front of the RV…

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…