Frenchiemoon: Vermont Part 1

The Hubs and I left the very early the Monday morning after our wedding. It was nice to have a complete day to relax by the pool at the Rancho Bernardo Inn. (Fun little fact about RB Inn: they have 3 pools - 1 is @ the Spa, 1 is the "adult pool", and the last is the "kids pool". The bar, is at the "kids pool"! But don't worry, we stopped off at the kids pool and got drinks to take to the Adult pool.) I would advise any couple to take a day after your wedding to relax before hopping on a plane (or in a car) to your honeymoon destination. I don't care where you're going, traveling can be stressful (especially if you're flying). It was so nice to wake-up at a reasonable time, go to our morning after breakfast, relax by the pool, and go to dinner with some friends.

Okay, where was I? Oh, right! We left, at the crack of dawn on Monday morning. My Dad dropped us to San Diego International Airport, long before it was this light outside, and we were on our way.

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The Hubs and I had grand dreams of telling the lady behind the ticket counter we were on our honeymoon and getting bumped up to first class, or moved around so we would have an entire row to ourselves. No such luck! Our flight was completely packed, the lady at the counter pretty much laughed in our faces.

After a layover at Dulles International Airport, we arrived in Burlington, VT around 6:30 pm. At the rental car counter the "It's our Honeymoon" line FINAL worked and they guy upgraded us to a bigger and newer car. We had booked a compact and ended up with a band new Nissan Rogue.

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The Rogue was perfect! It was small enough to easily drive around the tiny streets of Old Quebec City and Montreal, but sat up high enough for a good view of an area we weren't used to driving. Oh, and it fit all 3 of our suitcases... that's right I brought 2 suitcases. What? We were gone for 9 days and that is a LOT of shoes! So, it doesn't hurt to occasionally bat your eyelashes and say, "It's our honeymoon, do you think we could get something newer."

We stayed in Burlington one night before driving up to Quebec City. I found us an awesome hotel in Burlington, on Priceline, for about $5o.

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The hotel was called, The Essex, and it also the home of the New England Culinary Institute. We missed out on dinner in one of their restaurants, so we hung around long enough to have lunch at The Tavern.

The Hubs graduated from Cal Poly Pomona and got a taste of the culinary school experience in a 3 quarter long class working at The Restaurant at Kellogg Ranch. It was extra fun to see another school kitchen in action!

I had to get The Hubs' picture with the student chefs. (Please ignore, the fun face, I believe I caught him with taste bread in his mouth).

Being the bad honeymoon blogger I am, I forgot to take pictures of all our tasty food, but I did get a shot of my SUPER YUMMERS shrimp tacos.

All in all I would give The Essex and The Tavern an A. The hotel is gorgeous and our room was really quaint.

We loved Burlington! Hack, why do you think we came back early?

Did you want your husband try out the ,"It's our honeymoon" to get any upgrades or free stuff? Did it work?