{"id":20875,"date":"2026-08-23T22:10:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T03:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/?p=20875"},"modified":"2026-08-23T22:10:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T03:10:44","slug":"adventures-in-the-nek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/?p=20875","title":{"rendered":"Adventures in the NEK"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This Saturday Espen and I had one last hurrah before she goes back to school. (our hurrahs are generally small, but fun) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may remember that last summe<\/a>r we tried to visit the Haskell Free Library<\/a> in Derby Line, VT, an adorable little library right on the US\/Canada border. Or timing wasn’t great last summer, but we did a planning this year and had a much more successful trip! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You always need a good lay-down on a warm rock after a long car trip. That rock line is the country border.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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They put bigger “rocks” in the road so you can’t drive across the border. You can, however, cross the board a few streets up at a little border crossing station.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Us<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Silly us<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A very fun dragon puppet!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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This well worn black line is the border. It runs right through the children’s section!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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In the entry area they have the line and little flags marking the border. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The library was built in 1901 (opened in 1904). It was intentionally built on the border as a symbol of binational friendship. It’s a small library, but an active one. While we were there we saw people doing their normal library stuff, plus visitors from both sides of the border. They had a little gift shelf, so we bought a few little things as a way to support the library. :) We also had a nice chat with the librarian who was bubbly and smiley. I was thinking about asking if she was American or Canadian, but by the end of the conversation it was obvious. She was so nice she MUST have been Canadian!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we were done at the library we headed towards our next stop on the trip, but ended up with two detours along the way! One, lunch at the Vermont Pie & Pasta Company, and two, a random stop along the road when we saw giant straw sculptures at Chantel’s Creative Creations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hugs for the wooly mammoth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Her album cover<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Taming the dragon — “How to Train Your Dragon”-style.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Who’s a good boy?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We assume that Chantel updates them and does repairs in the fall. There were probably a dozen of these creations. A bunch of them had dried up corn stalks, old pumpkins, etc. as part of the sculpture. We were guessing they probably update them each fall. There was a cute cart there for pumpkins as well, which was empty because it’s not quite pumpkin season yet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We hopped back in the car and headed to our next scheduled stop – Cold Hollow Sculpture Park<\/a>. We weren’t sure what to expect, but it turned out to be a pretty cool place. It’s acres and acres of open fields filled with huge sculptures made of metal. They give you a map and a booklet that gives a brief peek into the artist’s thoughts for each one. We initially thought the place was too big, and it was hot and sunny, so we were just going to do a short walk, but as we went we found ourselves wanting to see more and more of them. We definitely didn’t see them all, but we spent over an hour walking around these fields, checking out the colorful pieces. Here are a few of them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Standing Wave<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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We Should Talk<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Oop-pop-pa-da<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Cheek to Cheek<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Look Homeward

We live here now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Hi De Ho Man<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Moments in Play<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Arpeggio in 9\/8<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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There Is Always Another Question<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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If Not for You<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Jitterbug<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A few weeks ago, while visiting VINS (a post that’s still on my tbw (to-be-written) list), I got a delicious sparkling cider drink<\/a> from a food truck. It was soo good! The food truck was from Cold Hollow Cider Mill, so when we realized they were on our way home from the sculpture park, we decided to stop. Cold Hollow Cider Mill is a cute little store, cafe, and active cider mill. Unfortunately for me, they are sold out of the cider I was hoping to buy. :( Apparently it’s a seasonal thing. I’ll have to stock up next season! We bought some other random stuff though, because, why not! The only picture I took was:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My caption was “The wedding is next fall.” Her caption was, “Me when I want to go home and my mom is still talking.” LOL<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had a perfect day. I’m going to miss my buddy when she’s back at college. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Saturday Espen and I had one last hurrah before she goes back to school. (our hurrahs are generally small, but fun) You may remember that last summer we tried to visit the Haskell Free Library in Derby Line, VT, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11,47],"class_list":["post-20875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-eve","tag-vacation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20875"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20876,"href":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20875\/revisions\/20876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familyblog.datdec.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}