Vermont Quilt Festival Trip 2019 continued . . . Covered Bridges

My friends Edith, Laurel, and I had attended the VQF on Friday, June 28th, and we had planned to visit the Shelburne Museum on Saturday. The forecast was for hot, humid, possibly stormy weather, so we changed our plans and headed to a quilt shop, which is featuring a very cute "Row by Row Experience" kit and pattern, in Lyndonville . 

Just so you know, we visited in total, seven quilt shops in our travels over the course of our getaway. "Weren't there enough vendors at the quilt show?" non-quilters might ask. Yes, of course, there were many, many vendors. Non-quilters will wonder why we then visited so many shops; quilters will only smile.  Each shop is different, and we wouldn't want to miss anything. :-) (You should have seen Yankee Pride Quilts in Essex Junction after the show; it was mobbed.  :-)

Anyway, Lyndonville, VT, turned out to be quite a treat. The quilt shop, Sewin Love Fabric Shoppe, and its owner were lovely, and the lady at the information center in town told us that Lyndonville has five covered bridges and, of course, we had to check them out. (We only managed to visit four.)

The one at the top of this post is the Randall Bridge 1865. Off to the right, I was struck by this  

vista. . . . h'mmm . . . a possible quilted landscape subject???

The Sanborn Bridge, the second bridge we visited, is in need of restoration and not in use, but we met a couple who told us where to find the other bridges and the story about the next bridge we would visit. They even showed up at that bridge to see if we had found it. :-)

Here's the story. On May 16, 2019, a woman on her first day driving a delivery truck didn't see or ignored the height warning sign. She claimed she was just following her GPS. Instead of stopping immediately when she hit resistance, she kept on plowing through causing extensive structural damage to the Miller Run Bridge. The Bridge dating to 1878 had been restored in 1995. You may click here to watch surveillance footage of the accident. 

This was an active bridge and townspeople must now use an alternate route until the bridge is repaired.

The next Lyndonville bridge was the Chamberlyn Bridge quite a classic beauty.

On the way out of town, we stopped to photograph this incredible mural. In the second photo, you can see the painter's identification . . . ANTHILL 2018. Note how the wooden ladder became part of the mural. Fantastic!!!

Was that the end of our covered bridge adventure? Not quite . . . Laurel saw mention of a covered bridge that we could visit on our way back to Stowe.  We drove down a very long, hard packed dirt road which brought us to Greenbank's Hollow in Danville, VT.

This is not the original bridge; it burned down in December 1885. If you click on the above photo to see an enlarged version, you may read about the forgotten village that once thrived there. The folks of the Danville Vermont Historical Society have done an excellent job with signs and pamphlets which insure that the structural remains and the story of this village will be preserved. You may see a period photo of the woolen mill and read about Greenbank's Hollow here.

It was a long but wonderful day, and that about covers all of our covered bridge adventures. :-)