Sunday, July 10 and Monday, July 11

On Sunday we moved over to So. Vermont. We are staying at Tree Farm Campground, a private park. It has all the amenities for around $30 a night. It is in a very old pine forest, with extremely tall trees. The park is so quiet, I think we could go for a day without seeing anyone else here.

On Monday we went down to Bennington, a place I had been quite often during my career at Delker/Dexmet. We found the Energizer plant I sold to, but we were headed to the Grandma Moses exhibit at the Bennington Museum.

The museum was really two in one, Grandma Moses’ paintings, and a rather eclectic collection of some really interesting artifacts from old Vermont and Bennington in particular. First Grandma Moses. I was really uninformed about her, thinking she might have been a “caricature “ or something. I found out she was actually a person, who spent most of her life in New York, not far from Bennington. She took to “art” lat in life starting out with fabric pictures’ and only adopting paints as her media later. She was said to have painted in the Primitive style. They had many of her paintings, and many other pieces from her life. They did a good job of showing the whimsy, and the progression through her paintings, but something seemed incongruous to me. It caused me to ask a guide how the Bennington museum managed to acquire all of these pictures and other things from her life. She had only been associated with Vermont for a very short period of time. I got a rather non communicative answer. It turned out that New York considers her to have been “hijacked". VT even has her One Room Schoolhouse. She had a “manager” who promoted her work, made her familiar with copyright laws, and seemed to take good care of her, to the stereotypical guy who takes advantage of a “bumpkin. She seemed wise in the way that we think of wise farmers and mountain people.

The Museum was several steps above the usual “town museums” we are fascinated with as we tour around. They can range from a glorified presentation of everybody’s attic, to a well curated theme of the towns history. This one was the latter, showing a well thought out and presented selection of artifacts from all the skills and professions that made up a small New England town. There was even the last surviving Wasp automobile. Wasps were cars built in the 20’s during the period when car makers flourished, assembling cars with components manufactured by others with unique designs. Wasps were luxury cars costing $10,000 , and available in a half a dozen body styles. This last one was in the process of being built for a customer who died before the car was finished. The company folded and the frame was purchased out of the plants assets. It was driven around town for awhile (just the frame!) and then left to rot. A guy in the Midwest remembered the Wasp, bought the frame and then proceeded to fabricate the rest of the car. He drove it around the country to shows for a few years, and then gave it to the museum. The car needed to be taken apart ande reassembled in the room it’s in at the museum.

Bennington was the site of a major Revolutionary war battle, that was the beginning of the end for Britain. The citizens built this monument to the soldiers, and it gives a great view of three states, and the Green Mountains.

The gear heads among our followers also know Bennington as the home of Hemmings Motor News, and it’s various spinoffs. Unfortunately, I didn’t read our guide book carefully and the museum closed at 3, not 5. They still operate a gas station, with full service in a 40’s setting.

Only thing modern is a Green Mountain Coffee shop inside, and the prices.