Tuesday, January 29, 2008

A New Award and an Old Town

Blog award from Lib

First of all, I have received this award from Sandra at Nora Lee's Nook. Here's what she said about me: "Hope at Second Time Around where it is always fun to stop by and see what she is up to, and also for some laughs!" I am so glad that I can bring a smile to the ones who visit here. As I told Sandra, laughter is good medicine, and I'm a firm believer in laughter! If you haven't visited her at Nora Lee's Nook, you must run on over there and check it out. Sandra has many old items which she shares passed down through generations of her family. She's also a girl after my own heart who loves junkin' and she also shares many of her great finds!! Thanks you so much, Sandra, for this honor. When you drop in on her, tell her Hope sent you! :)

Next, an old town! This past summer DH fulfilled one of my dreams by taking me on a trip from VA to Maine. It was a long, tiring trip but we saw so many interesting places along the way, as you can imagine. There's no way I could get all this into one post so I'll break it down so that you don't get "picture overload"! As I mentioned in one of the meme's I did a while back, I love the movie Baby Boom with Diane Keaton, about a devoted career woman who "inherits" a baby and leaves her city life for the country. The name of the area in the movie was Hadleyville, Vermont, but in real life, it is a very small town called Peru, Vermont. This little town consists of a town center:

Peru towncenter

an old cemetary behind the towncenter:

Peru cemetary

a post office:

Peru VT 1

a beautiful, old church:

Peru church

and my favorite place, the old general store:

Peru grocery store

In the movie, Keaton's character buys a farm, sight unseen, complete with a beautiful old farmhouse and an apple orchard. With so many apples laying around going to waste, she decides to make baby food apple sauce for her newly inherited baby.
Being a sharp business woman, she also decides to try and sell some of this baby food so she takes some to the local general store. Tourists drift through this small town from a much larger, neighboring town which is a resort area. (We actually stayed in the resort town for one night. Very expensive place but nice.) This little store is the actual one from the movie.

The General Store, Peru, VT

It took me back in time for a while. The lady who now owns the store was very friendly and told us all about the excitement that went on during the making of the movie. I was amazed at all the goodies sold in this one small place. Fresh muffins and coffee in the morning, cheeses, pizza and of course, Vermont Maple Syrup. It even had the old wood stove still used for heat where the old men use to sit around, swapping stores and spitting tobacco juice in the spittoon!

Inside General Store

Notice the original old wood floor around the stove. The original wood counters are still in use too, along with the old cash register. (Oh yeah, they also sell night crawlers and worms!)

counter in general store

front of counter

A sign is still displayed over a doorway showing the original owner.

Sign in General Store


When Keaton's character was driving to her new home in the film, this is the beautiful tree-lined road she was on:

Peru VT 2

The store owner told us that the house used in the film was just a few miles down the road but was too far back to be seen from the road. We left this town by way of the tree-lined road on to our next destination. I was amazed at all the dirt roads in this area which are main routes! We use to have a lot of these in our county that have now been paved.

I hope you've enjoyed your little tour today. I want to show more of the places we visited at a later date. I also hope my pictures aren't chopped up a lot. The only thing I could do was resize them but then when I loaded them to Flickr they were bigger. :( The only other way I could find to change my template and make it wider was with HTML and I know nothing about that! Oh well, maybe sooner or later a more computer literate person will be able to help me!









14 comments:

j said...

First of all, I didn't read the post but I saw pics and I am DEFINITELY coming back in a little bit! Second, I mentioned you in my post and there may be a reward for your capture. Wait, there's an award for you capturing my heart :) Jennifer

Talk..to..Grams said...

I went to the Dr today... I have the junk that is going around... I was in bed most of the day yesterday... I have award for you! The You Are a Blessing! Love and hugs Grasm

Talk..to..Grams said...

Grams Grams Grams See I can get it right!!

Karla Cook @ Roads to Everywhere said...

Oh, Hope... I think I know what the problem is now! I bet it's because you use Flickr. Try using Picasa and see if that helps. Blogger and Picasa are both Google affiliates, so they are designed to be compatible. I think Flickr may be affiliated with Yahoo.

I enjoyed the pictures anyway! What a neat little town! I have a "general store" theme going on in my kitchen, and I love to browse quaint little places like that looking for ideas.

Lib said...

Hi Hope,
Wow ,I LOVE THIS POST! I Love small towns:o) And Friendly people that seems to come with sm.towns. What a vacation you all had>:o)
Hope youre having a good week.
THanks for the post I look forward to seeing more.:o)
LHB,Lib

Betty said...

I loved the tour. The pictures and the description of the town made me feel like I had just visited there. I especially liked seeing the picture of the old wood stove. I remember those days.

Interesting post today, Hope. You did a good job.

Diane@Diane's Place said...

Lovely place and pictures, Hope. The farthest North and East I've been is New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Your pixel size on your pictures and how wide the column is on your blog affects how much of your picture will show on your blog. I just generally go with medium or small when I upload my pics, then make a note that you can click on the pictures to enlarge them if necessary. I also use Blogger for the most part, rarely use Photo Bucket or Flickr, and never use Picasa. Just my preferences.

Thanks for your sweet comment on my Blogiversary post. Friends like you are what making blogging so rewarding, Hope. ;o)

Love and hugs,

Diane

Karen H. said...

Good Morning Hope,
Sorry I didn't get to visit last night, but we were without power for 11 hours. We had some fierce winds here yesterday and last night. I posted about it on my today's post. I love you post today. "THANK YOU" so much for taking us on the tour with you. I can't wait for another tour you will share with us. I love the Old General Store. I love the inside look of it as well. I love the scenery up that way, but I will just keep my feet on flatland and look at your pictures. LOL. I wonder why they changed the name of the town in the movie? I remember when they filmed John Grisham's "A PAINTED HOUSE". It was filmed in my hometown. I was working at the Police Department while they were doing some of the filming there. I could sit and look out the window and see some of the filming. It was so neat. I didn't get to meet any stars that were in the movie tho. Some of the stores there still have some things on it about the painted house. They also have a Museum there in town also. I haven't been to it yet. Take care my friend and have a great day. May God Bless You and Yours. "CONGRATULATION'S" on a very well deserved Award. You do make my day.

Love & Hugs,
Karen H.

Nora Lee said...

Hope, I love hearing about these kinds of trips and the pictures, it is the next best thing to being there. My husband and I want to take a trip to the New Englands states as well sometime.

Sandra

Anonymous said...

This makes me want to rent the movie and rewatch it...
*smile*

Anonymous said...

Nice Aqua in VT? My town is so tiny if you blink you miss it! I looove Wilmington NC gorgeous! Denise Mass.

Yellow Rose Arbor said...

I enjoyed seeing this beautiful little town! Baby Boom is one of my favorite movies, I've seen it many times!

Katherine

Jill said...

I just saw that movie and I the sign for Dorset and Manchester and was trying to figure out where it was filmed. I did recognize the Equinox hotel in manchester where they had a scene of her selling the baby food. Thank you for identifying Peru! I have to go there now.

Anonymous said...

Been on a Baby Boom spree because I am trapped in a suburb of Philly and have to get out. Used to live in Underhill Center, love the movie, and the land of VT. Don't like the politics anymore so I'll never go back. Also, one thing that really bothers me about the movie is that they never have gloves or mittens on the baby. Obviously no one who worked the movie was a mother and the twins mom must have been overwhelmed.