Vermont Mad Marathon with Tracy 7/11:7/15/2025

 Vermont Trip with Tracy - 7/11-7/15/2025

Still catching up on my blogs!

My friend Tracy was working on running a marathon in every state and Vermont was one of her last states.  Even though I had ran in Vermont before, I wanted to run with her.

My flight came into Burlington earlier than Tracy.  No biggie, I got the Turo car and spent the day in Burlington and then checked into our Air B and B early.

However, Tracy was not having a fun time trying to get to Vermont.  First of all, the friend of hers that was supposed to come with us got horribly sick and she canceled.  Then, Tracy's flights were delayed and delayed.  I was supposed to get her that Friday evening around 6pm or so.  Tracy called and said that it would be later.  So I actually went to bed waiting for her to call and wake me up.  She texted and let me know that she was trapped in Atlanta for the night and she wouldn't be coming into Vermont until the next day, Saturday.  I was so bummed for her and I was worried that she wouldn't have enough time to decompress before the race on Sunday.  Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do but wait for her call.

Downtown Burlington Vermont

Lake Champlain in Vermont

Tracy rented this house that was well over 100 years old.  It was at the top of this amazing river.  The only bad part, which really wasn't that bad, is that it was INSANELY hot the weekend of the race.  But the lady was so nice and she had a bunch of fans trying to keep it cool for us in the apartment.

Looking out over the Mad River

Saturday, I had bought tickets to tour the Von Trapp family lodge and brewery in Stow, Vermont.  I was so sad because Tracy was trapped in Atlanta and not able to go.  Luckily, the ladies at the lodge were very nice and they refunded me the 2 tickets that I didn't end up using (the one for Tracy and her friend).

I was so excited to go on this tour!  If you know anything about the Sound of Music, this property was founded by the real life VonTrapp family when they fled the Nazis back in Salzburg, Austria. 

The first part of the tour was listing to a tour guide in this outdoor Yurt about the real history of the family and the movie.  Fun fact: The movie is quite different from the real life family.

Maria and the Baron purchased this property because it reminded them of Europe.  The lodge started as a small, humble ski lodge and over the years it grew into what it is today.

Many of the family members are buried in a private cemetery on the property.  Maria and the Baron are buried here together.

More of the VonTrapp family members

This is Kristina VonTrapp.  She came to speak at the end of our tour and answer any questions.  She was so down to earth and friendly.  I got her to sign a book for me!  Luckily, I took notes as she talked so I can write down everything she said.  First of all, she never has seen the movie.  Her grandmother and the Baron had 3 children in addition to the 7 that the Baron had from his first marriage.  Kristina is the daughter of the last son (Johanna) born from Maria and the Baron.  He is the last of the Vontrapp children that are still alive.  He owns the lodge and he started the newer brewery a few years ago.  He's is 86 years old and at the time of our visit was down in New Mexico at his farm there living life to the fullest!
Some interesting facts about the movie:  The Vontrapps do NOT get any royalties from the movie.  They never have.  The children in the movie are not correct as far as age and gender.  The time frame that the movie is supposed to portray, the children in real life were much older (like in their 20s and some of them didn't even live at home).  The names are of the children are different as well.  The oldest child in real life was a son, not a daughter. 
The Vontrapps settled in Vermont because it reminded them of Austria.  They had very little money when they came to America.  If I remember correctly, the family lived in a bus and toured around America singing to earn money when they first arrived before they could build anything on the property.  It was just such a cool tour!

After the lodge tour, I headed over the Vontrapp brewery for the tour there.

Here are all the notes I took about the Brewery!

The brewery was Johanas's idea.  Lager is a traditional German / Austria beer and a lot of people don't make it because it takes long to make.  They use the natural water from the springs on the property for the beer.  They opened in 2015 and are 36,000 sq feet.  They have the malt silos in the building to control the temperature of the malt.  However, it is very dangerous to keep the malt silos inside.  So, they had to build an explosion proof room around the silos for safety.  They buy the malt from Germany.  Barley seeds are the start.  They import the hops from Germany as well.  They keep the hops in the freezer and it comes to them as pellets. 

The stainless steel tanks are from Germany and the company actually sent Germans to America to assemble the tanks.  They didn't trust that the Americans would do it right! haha. The beer self carbonates in the takes because of the yeast that they add.  In order to release the gasses, the guide said that a good old 5 gallon bucket still works better than any other method they have tried.  The gas is CO2 and they need to make sure that fans are always running because CO2 is heavier than regular air and if the air isn't moving the CO2 out, you can get light headed walking around out by the tanks!

The tour guide said that they mostly do cans now because glass is so heavy and expensive to ship. 80% of their business is cans.  20% bottles. Beer breaks down from UV light and oxygen.  That's why beer is typically bottled in dark glass. Maybe that's common knowledge but I didn't know! Also, fun fact, One keg of beer is 140lbs. 

The Ibex is the symbol of the VonTrapp brewery.  They chose the Ibex because this animal can live at the highest elevations.  They wanted to represent that their beer is of the highest quality.  At the end of the tour, they gave us samples of their beer.  It was such a fun tour, I'm so sad that Tracy missed it.

After the tour, I drove to the airport and picked up Tracy.  Her flight finally made it to Vermont.  She was tired and hungry and just wanted a shower and to rest!  We went to the store to get some food and then we just went straight back to the house to eat and rest up before our big race the next day.

On Sunday, July 13th we went to the start of our Marathon!  I was worried they would actually cancel it because of how blazing hot it was that weekend.  Thank goodness they did not.  HOWEVER, it was one of the hardest marathons I have ever ran.  The heat was one thing but the HILLS were no joke.  I mean, hills where you are leaning forward to walk up them.  I've never seen hills like this before.

The great thing about this small town race is that there were a lot of people helping the runners with water and watermelon and salt and other food. I told one guy he was a life saver!  I ran with a full water bag and had to refill at mile 13.  The heat was brutal.

Start of the race!

There were a lot of old barns and covered bridges on the race route. You could smell the old wood in the air

It's hard to see, but this is one of the killer hills. The picture does not do it justice

At the end of the race, I saw a girl that I happened to sit next to on the plane. She had came with a whole group of people to run this race. 

I finished!

The next day, we had plans to tour the Ben and Jerry factory in Waterbury, VT.  On our drive there, we passed these buildings that looked like the old asylums that they had back in the day (think of the one in Traverse City). Anyway, we stopped to walk around and check them out and sure enough it used to be a state hospital.  Most of the buildings were offices now, but they did have a little bit of the history still there, which was interesting.  We were hoping for more of a ghost tour kind of thing, but that doesn't exist there.

The original smoke stack still says VSH (Vermont State Hospital)

Ben and Jerry's!

At Ben and Jerry's you could make your own Tie Die T-shirt.  I made one for my step sister's daughter Yara.  It was really fun

I'm a little sad that they won't allow you to take pictures inside of the factory, but the tour was really interesting.  The factory was actually really small.  They have this factory, one that is non-dairy and one in Europe and that's it.  At this factory, they produce 400,000 pints of ice cream a day.  They run a 72 hour shift then a 25hr cleaning period when they change ingredients.  The Quality person tastes and chemically checks the ice cream.  they cut a pint in half to check for air bubbles and to make sure the pint is filled properly.  When we were there, we saw one of the workers just tossing pints of ice cream in the garbage!  She explained that what had happened was the lid wasn't properly placed on the pint so they toss it because of fear of contamination.  The worker only threw out maybe a dozen pints but it was interesting to see that they take their food contamination process very seriously.  

After the tour, we headed outside to the ice cream graveyard.  They have tombstones of all the flavors that 'died' over the years.  Kind of funny.

After Ben and Jerry's tour, we drove to Montpelier and walked around a bit.  We also went to a maple syrup farm (Morse Farm Sugar works).  Vermont is such a pretty state.  The roads are very narrow and windy.  It's kind of hard to drive on the old side roads to be honest!

Morse Farm Maple Sugarworks.  We brought home some syrup but we had to be careful since we both only had carry on and it counts as a liquid :(

It was a super fun weekend and I'm so glad I went with Tracy.  What a fun experience!