A New First Choice

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday, September 19 we got up early and hit the road by 6:30 a.m. We had a whirlwind trip through NH, Vermont, MA and a touch of NY. Our quest was for Burlington, VT and Champlain College. The weather was beautiful and the further north we went the more the colors were changing. Once we got into NH we hit a lot of fog. The above photo on the left shows the mountains that were always in our view. The photo on the right is the mountains with the whiter area showing the fog that we were headed into. (Click on photos for larger view).

Above is the view from an outdoor deck at Champlain College. You can see the mountains off in the distance with a great view of the lake. We had lunch there and were able to enjoy the beautiful view. The air is so fresh and clean there. We were all very impressed with the college and it moved up into the number one spot for Em. Our 2 tour guides were students. They had a lot of enthusiasm and good information to share. The college is very small only about 2000 students. The education is top notch and very personalized. They’re one of the few schools in the country to offer video game design. The ratio of guys to girls is 60/40 and tended to be a lot of computer geeks. Right now Em is thinking of creative writing which is offered.

The campus itself is unlike any we had ever seen before. Burlington is very hilly. From the street you really couldn’t tell there was a college. One side of the street is made up of old Victorian mansions like the ones below. In reality they are the dorms. They have all been refurbished for the students. We were able to see one of the rooms and I was impressed by how nice it was even though it was small. It even had wall-to-wall carpeting. There is a cleaning service so the kids don’t have to worry about that. The 2 photos above are part of the campus courtyard. We were very pleased not only with the school but the quality of education the kids get. As you can imagine it all comes with a price tag but its been our experience that there is no cheap secondary education unless you go to a community college.

The picture above left is the admissions building for Champlain College.

The University of Vermont is down the street from Champlain. Aside from the price tag my only other reservation is the distance. It took 3.5 hours to get there. When we finished up there we headed south to check out Green Mountain College. It’s very small, about 1000 students and after seeing Champlain we all knew right away that it would not be a good fit.

Traveling through Vermont I was impressed by how brilliant green it was. It was also clear that farming is a big industry for Vermont. The photo below on the left was typical of the farms we saw. We couldn’t help but think of Gary as we traveled through. We though if he had some extra time and hay bales on his hands he could create some of the hay art we saw all along the way.

The majority of these pictures were taken while we were traveling. I tried to capture a covered bridge as we whizzed by. Perhaps if Em gets accepted Greg and I can spend the night and really do some site seeing. It’s a beautiful state.