The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music...

Today, we left the Vermont house, headed through Massachusetts into Hartford, Connecticut to take Mother, Daddy and Aunt Linda to the airport for their flight home. On the way, we were pleasantly surprised to discover the Yankee Candle Flagship Store in South Deerfield, Massachusetts!! We found out later that it is a huge tourist attraction and touted as the "Scenter of New England". It's the Disney World for candles and you certainly need a map to find your way through it all!!

However, the best surprise was finding that we arrived at the same time as the VON TRAPP family singers and we were able to attend their concert right there at the store! The Von Trapps are the great grandchildren of Captain and Maria Von Trapp from the Sound of Music. Their family home is in Stowe, Vermont (and Montana), but they perform all over the world singing the songs of their grandparents homeland - Austria. The children have continued the tradition of the families' exceptional musical gifts and sing a variety of folk European and American music. It was truly a treat for us to be able to hear them and feel the connection from past generations.

After saying goodbye to family in Connecticut, we drove to Providence, Rhode Island. We saw Brown University and the gold-domed Rhode Island State Capitol building as well as famous churches and traditional Federal and Victorian homes. Providence is a beautiful city and we enjoyed our short time exploring.

Since we had booked a hotel for Newport, RI, we drove to the harbor for dinner. We tried a local restaurant, Rhode Island Quahogs (COE-hogs - meaning hard-shell clams) and enjoyed their "world renowned" clam chowder - freshly made. We also had shrimp stuffed with crab, scallops andmini shrimp, all while sitting outside on a heated porch watching the locals go by. The atmosphere and the food made our visit to the New England seaboard special.