Tell me somethin' good . .

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Love it!

We just spent four days at the von Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont. I had stayed there one night with my daughter in October, 2020 (we were glad we were allowed to stay!). I enjoyed it so much I wanted to take DH there some day. In November, I made reservations for this weekend, noting that we would be celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary.

After we checked in, we got a message that we should go down to the front desk for a gift. I was expecting a small trinket, but they handed me three gift cards for a total of $150!! We were blown away. We enjoyed a very nice dinner in their restaurant.

On Sunday, we went to a lecture about the family’s history and got to meet Maria’s granddaughter, Kristina, who now runs the organization. Later I was kicking myself for not thanking her in person for the gift cards, but the front desk gave me her email address so I wrote her a note last night.

If you ever get a chance to stay there, do it! It’s in such a beautiful area, and they have lots of activities. We signed up for “Hike with the Goats” and got to walk up to a chapel one of the von Trapp kids built after he survived WWI. The two Nigerian dwarf goats were so gentle and friendly! They reminded us of our dogs, but they were better-behaved. We also went on the “Meet the Cows Tour” where we got to see some of their herd of 90 Scottish Highland cattle and learn about them. The “Sugar Maple Tour” was good, too - we saw their grove of maples and the sugar house. They have to load wood into a big stove every five minutes, non-stop, in order to make maple syrup. Our guide had done it for many years, but he developed back issues and tennis elbow (no surprise!) so he had to stop. The final thing we signed up for was gentle yoga, perfect for us newbies. We had to pay for yoga and the goat hike, but everything else was free.

We left the grounds only a couple of times the entire visit. We definitely plan to go back. :slight_smile:

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I have a new obsession/time waster. It is a Youtube channel called Dalscone Daily. Ben is a sheep/goat farmer in Scotland and his accent is so cute. He is always birthing a sheep or goat, or even a donkey or horse. Sometimes he dresses up the goats in hats. He’s just so funny calling the ewes ‘darling’ and ‘mama’. And the little lambs are really cute.

Yep, a good hour a day is now spent in Scotland with Ben.

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