October 1, 2008 Limehurst Lake Campground, Barre, Vermont

We woke up to light rain. We walked Penny, had breakfast and about 9:00 left for Rock of Ages granite quarry which is about 8 miles away. Larry had read in another blog where they had been here and he had seen it in some area attraction listings, so he wanted to see it. It was quite impressive. You can check it out here if you’d like: http://www.rockofages.com/visitors/index.html . Founded in 1885, they have cut out granite blocks for tombstones, statues and memorials.

They are down about 600 feet and the quarries, some abandoned and filled with water, cover 50 acres. The wasted piles are unbelievable. Getting into the quarry site, you pass huge mountains, called grout piles, of large chunks of granite. They said it is not cost efficient to try to do anything with them. We also toured the factory where they cut the stones.

It was all very interesting; some were really intricate and very artistic.

After the Rock of Ages, we went to Ben and Jerry’s (ice cream) in Waterbury, VT, about 20 miles away.

We were able to get into a tour right away, though the factory has been shut down for the last couple of weeks. We were given a small sample of one of their newer flavors, “Half Baked”. It was great. Of course, we each also had to buy a serving to try other flavors. Yumm!

When we got back to Barre (pronounced Barry), we drove through a couple of cemeteries they had told us about while we were at the Rock of Ages.

They had some pretty unusual tombstones and memorials.