August 2023 Stay-cation Day 1

Last weekend, Jim and I decided to try a “stay-cation” and took 3 days to visit three different places – near and not so near – to our home in Vermont. One of my favorite places to take a leisurely stroll is the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Park in Woodstock, VT. There are miles of carriage road trails and footpaths to explore as well as a very cool mansion to tour. Behind the mansion, the park maintains a perennial garden that has been the subject of some of my other posts in previous years.

On this visit, I was surprised to learn that the site was established as a national park as recently as 1998. Just a year before we moved to Vermont. We had not toured the mansion before – either it was not open or it was closed for Covid on previous visits. So, we did the free tour this time around that consisted of just walking around the first floor of the interior of the house. It was quite impressive with elaborate woodwork and parquet flooring. I did not take any pictures inside but take my word for it – it is worth the short wait to get a glimpse of the interior.

After touring the house, we ambled through the perennial garden and, on our way to the trails, passed by the cutting garden that is adjacent to the greenhouse.

The cutting garden was impressive!

After admiring the fantastic cutting garden, we continued onto the carriage road trails and walked to the Mt. Tom summit. It was a beautiful day – not too sunny – and cool.