Who would ever think that a small town Fourth of July celebration would be the best place to be? Last year we spent the holiday watching the fireworks go off over the Empire State Building. It was unforgettable, amazing, incredible, but the small town experience may be even better.
The Vermont State House in Montpelier is made from granite 
quarried in the state because they really like to keep things local. Walking up to the building you will notice how well they keep the grounds. It is very pretty with a beautiful display of flowers leading up to the front steps. It made for some great pictures. Our tour guide did a great job of showing us the building and giving us some interesting facts. At the start of the tour she informed us that they will soon be redoing the gold dome and she brought out a “bar of gold” that would be equal in weight to what they put on the dome. The kids were thrilled to hold a “bar of gold.”
I was born and raised in the mountains and have always felt a connection to them.Although visiting the beaches of the Gulf coast was fun, I have been aching to see mountains again. The last time we were in the mountains was in Big Bend National Park before Christmas and to me that is a long time. The kids were a little surprised when we crested a hill and I saw mountains because I let out a joyous call. The forested hills of Georgia were very pretty, but these were mountains and I knew that soon we would be in the Great Smokey Mountains! Of course the kids were not as excite, until we visited the mine and then they flipped out too.
