Away from the Crowds in Vermont

The Burlington Earth Clock is a contemporary compass, calendar, and clock that looks like a prehistoric stone circle on the shores of Lake Champlain. If someone stands in the middle and assumes the role of gnomon—the component of a sundial that casts a shadow—the shadow cast upon the ground will tell the time. With specific stones orientated in the four primary cardinal directions, the entire circle serves as a compass. Circles for Peace, a grassroots nonprofit, produced this stone circle. By aligning with the cycles and rhythms of nature, the composition seeks to assist in discovering inner peace.

If you were traveling in Burlington, seeing this 36-drawer filing cabinet might make you think you were seeing things. This amazing creation was built in 2002 by local artist Bren Alvarez. Each of the drawers represents the number of years of paperwork that Alvarez accumulated working on a local street project. This artwork is known to be the tallest filing cabinet on Earth. It now sits in the parking lot at 208 Flynn Ave.

See the flying monkey sculptures in Burlington that adorn the roofs of two signature buildings in the harbor. The first two steel sculptures were created in the 1970s by Steve Larrabee to expand upon the Wizard of Oz theme of a now-defunct local waterbed store that was called Emerald City. After the closing of the store, the monkey sculptures were moved around and finally found their new home on the roof of One Main, a tall stone building, with a backdrop of the Adirondack Mountains across the lake.

Since these two flying monkeys became popular, the artist chose to install another pair of flying monkeys, only baby-sized, on top of the same building. Adjacent to One Main, the Lake and College Building has another pair of adult flying monkeys. The Waterfront Theater, one of the tenants of Lake and College, adopted one of the newer flying monkeys as its symbol and includes a silhouette of the monkey on its signage.

The building that inspired Shirley Jackson’s novel “The Haunting of Hill House” was Jennings Hall in North Bennington. The writer of the horror story moved to North Bennington with her husband in 1940. Among the other horror stories she wrote, her most popular was the novel “The Haunting of Hill House,” which was published in 1959 and also became a film in 1963. Jennings Hall on the campus of Bennington College was the inspiration for Hill House. The building is an old mansion built of gray stones and is used by the music department. It seems spooky set aside from other campus buildings upon a hill.

The Miniature Castles of South Hero are a unique collection of miniature stone castles in the small, island town. The castles were the project of Harry Barber, a Swiss immigrant who was a gardener and built the stone fortresses as tributes to his home country. After he built the first few castles, there was a demand for them, and he continued building, with some of them having electrical wiring and running water in the moat.

Others have drawbridges, glass windows, flags, and long spiral staircases. Despite being known for this wonderful work, Barber committed suicide in 1966, but his castles remain to this day.

Enjoy the Robert Frost Interpretive Trail in Ripton. This is an easy 1.2-mile walk crossing Beaver Pond and the south branch of the Middlebury River. About a half dozen poems by American poet Robert Frost are printed on signs at points along the trails. You’ll find a poem about birches near a stand of birch or a poem about mowing near an open field.

The poet spent his summers at nearby Homer Noble Farm and often walked in these woods.

See the Bread Loaf Campus at Middlebury College, where Frost was a teacher.

Located outside of Burlington, Shelburne Farms sits between Lake Champlain and Route 7. The farm was built by Dr. Seward Webb and Lila Vanderbilt Webb in 1886 not only as a summer home but also as a sustainable nonprofit teaching farm with Brown Swiss cows, piglets, and baby goats.

The lovely inn at the farm is a bed and breakfast surrounded by trails along which visitors can enjoy nature. The trails were designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect known for designing New York City’s Central Park. Tour guides are available to show visitors around the rolling hills, pastures, sandy shores, and dense forests. The inn is closed from October to March due to lack of heating.

Texas Falls, located in Hancock, is an ancient glacial pothole waterfall in the Green Mountains. When the last glaciers retreated from the mountains 12,000 years ago, they left a rushing river that carved out potholes and gorges, and the falls was formed.

Fans of the popular film “The Sound of Music” will enjoy the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe. The Trapp family settled here in 1942. Mostly because the surrounding green mountains reminded them of the Austrian countryside. By 1947 they had renovated the house into a ski lodge. They family still sang together and recorded albums. They disbanded in 1957. The Trapp children went on to lead their own lives, but Maria stayed at the family lodge, working with members of her family to maintain the property. In 1980 the structure was damaged by fire, but a new structure was built in the same location and opened in 1983.

In Thetford, you’ll find the unusual Vermontasaurus. This is the creation of Brian Boland, a retired school teacher and experimental balloon pilot. He created the Vermontasaurus from a huge collection of scrap wood. The 122-foot-long and 25-foot-tall dinosaur took shape in 2010 near the Post Mills Airport in Thetford. Unfortunately, the sculpture collapsed in 2012 but was rebuilt by Boland and 50 volunteers, with the group also creating a baby Vermontasaurus.

Amazing as it seems, the house with witch windows in Craftsbury has windows that, due to folklore, are slanted through which witches on broomsticks cannot fly into the house. These 19th-century architectural anomalies, also known simply as "Vermont windows" or "lazy windows," have blurred origins.