Our summer has a rocky theme to it this year, thanks in part to Mema’s frequent visits. Last week she took us up to the Vermont Marble Museum where we got to see lots of beautiful marble samples and learn the history of marble mining in Vermont. I didn’t even know there was marble mining in Vermont! Apparently the eastern side of the state has a belt of granite and the western side has a belt of marble. Hence the mountain moniker.
The museum entry is framed with gigantic marble slabs. I think the sign said they were about 18,000lbs each.
As the article proclaimed, keep mom in the picture!
Grandpa Tom went right to work carving soapstone.
This is a cute statute with no owner (see sign below).
I offered to help out if they are looking for a new owner. :)
The hall of presidents. The kids got bored here pretty quickly, so we sent them on some quests, like finding how many presidents were from Vermont (2), Virgina (8), or how many were bald (?) or had beards (6).
This would make a beautiful garden bench, wouldn’t it?
The kids got tired and took a little rest, then rallied for the second half of the museum!
I love this fireplace. Maybe we need to put a layer of marble tile over our ugly brick fireplace.
I found my new kitchen! :)
We were told that for insurance purposes visitors were no longer allowed to view the actual marble mines. That was sad. This picture here is impressive though.
We bought a few things at the gift shop, then found this “free marble” pile by the exit. D’oh! We each grabbed several pieces of raw marble to go with our polished, purchased samples.
Lex wanted to write a newspaper article about our trip, so he had me take this picture of him. I was happy to oblige.
We were hoping to eat lunch by the marble mine, but since that was closed we settled for the next best thing – a beautiful park. Rough life.
We couldn’t leave without a little more rock climbing! And camera posing.
It was a beautiful day for a day trip and now we are even more knowledgeable of the rocks in Vermont!