May 8, 2008--Mud Season
I know that a lot of places which depend on tourism try to come up with schemes (I almost said scams) to attract visitors during their off seasons. You know, how to get folks to visit Aspen in June and spend $400 for a hotel room when there is no skiing and no celebrities around at whom to gawk. Or how to seduce tourists to the Miami Beach during August when it's 100 degrees out and the humidity is a dripping 100 percent.
But though I love to settle in in Vermont to escape from the city's summer heat and to take in leaf-changing season, and understand why for those who ski winters are the ideal time to visit, I say to Vermonters leave well enough alone and forget about trying to lure tourists up there between winter and spring when all the state's charming footpaths and unpaved roads turn into a sea of mud.
It is called Mud Season and no one will argue that it’s inappropriately named. And no one will suspect that its some perverse form of Camber of Commerce hype. It’s literally a sloppy messy but natural time. A time of regeneration and eternal hope. If from all that snow and all this slop such beauty each year will emerge, viewed in the right way—which admittedly is not easy to do while slipping and sliding when calf-deep in mud--It’s also the time that separates true Vermont natives from the rest of us Flatlanders.
Only those who families who go back at least four generations take this season in stride. In fact, if Vermont is wired deep in your DNA, you don’t even take notice of the swales of goo. You just pull up your socks and get on with it.
But some innkeepers, probably folks who have lived in Vermont for only 50 years or so don’t get it. Never will. But I understand, though they’re now living in about the best place on earth, still, like the rest of us, they have to pay their rising heating costs (even cords of firewood have gotten to be expensive) and in many places up there gas already costs more than $4.00 a gallon.
So maybe we should forgive them that they are trying to turn mud into a tourist attraction.
According to the New York Times (article linked below), at the Wildflower Inn in Lyndondale, your $300 per-person midweek package includes, on arrival, a “complimentary mudslide.” So be forewarned—dress accordingly. When you check in a slice of mud pie awaits and then they rush you off to the spa for, you guessed it, a mud wrap. For the outdoors type, they guide you to the nearby mud bogs where if you’re luck you may spot a moose. And when you get back to the inn, they promise to pile on extra soap. An amenity that always gets me back for a second visit. I personally like nothing better than being able to filch a few extra bars of those little hotel soaps.
Sounds good, no? Well, when last we checked, the Wildflower, in spite of its unique Mud Season deal, has had as yet no takers. So if you’re looking for something unique to do this weekend, give them a ring.
The weather forecast for Friday is perfect—heavy rain. It will be just what’s needed to melt the last of the snow and as a result the resulting mud should all that anyone could wish for.
But though I love to settle in in Vermont to escape from the city's summer heat and to take in leaf-changing season, and understand why for those who ski winters are the ideal time to visit, I say to Vermonters leave well enough alone and forget about trying to lure tourists up there between winter and spring when all the state's charming footpaths and unpaved roads turn into a sea of mud.
It is called Mud Season and no one will argue that it’s inappropriately named. And no one will suspect that its some perverse form of Camber of Commerce hype. It’s literally a sloppy messy but natural time. A time of regeneration and eternal hope. If from all that snow and all this slop such beauty each year will emerge, viewed in the right way—which admittedly is not easy to do while slipping and sliding when calf-deep in mud--It’s also the time that separates true Vermont natives from the rest of us Flatlanders.
Only those who families who go back at least four generations take this season in stride. In fact, if Vermont is wired deep in your DNA, you don’t even take notice of the swales of goo. You just pull up your socks and get on with it.
But some innkeepers, probably folks who have lived in Vermont for only 50 years or so don’t get it. Never will. But I understand, though they’re now living in about the best place on earth, still, like the rest of us, they have to pay their rising heating costs (even cords of firewood have gotten to be expensive) and in many places up there gas already costs more than $4.00 a gallon.
So maybe we should forgive them that they are trying to turn mud into a tourist attraction.
According to the New York Times (article linked below), at the Wildflower Inn in Lyndondale, your $300 per-person midweek package includes, on arrival, a “complimentary mudslide.” So be forewarned—dress accordingly. When you check in a slice of mud pie awaits and then they rush you off to the spa for, you guessed it, a mud wrap. For the outdoors type, they guide you to the nearby mud bogs where if you’re luck you may spot a moose. And when you get back to the inn, they promise to pile on extra soap. An amenity that always gets me back for a second visit. I personally like nothing better than being able to filch a few extra bars of those little hotel soaps.
Sounds good, no? Well, when last we checked, the Wildflower, in spite of its unique Mud Season deal, has had as yet no takers. So if you’re looking for something unique to do this weekend, give them a ring.
The weather forecast for Friday is perfect—heavy rain. It will be just what’s needed to melt the last of the snow and as a result the resulting mud should all that anyone could wish for.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
7:24 AM
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