A trip to the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream factory! An unusual choice for a winter activity, and as we crossed the Vermont border and it started to rain –cold, misty rain– it felt all the more poorly timed.

An hour later, a free mint-chocolate-chunk sample in my hand (cheerfully offered at the end of the factory tour), and I had completely forgotten about weather-induced whining. Besides the sugar, there’s something addictive about the Ben and Jerry’s atmosphere and unconventional, fun-loving philosophy. It’s optimism exemplified, the spunky story of two unlikely heroes and their realization of the American Dream via specialty sweet treat: success through good old-fashioned hard work, gumption, and following one’s vision with gusto. It wasn’t the literal ice-cream-making process, described in detail on the tour, that particularly interested me (although the giant, shiny stainless steel mixing bowls and mouth-watering ingredients were pretty mesmerizing).  It was the attitude behind all those ice cream beaters and chocolate chips, that go-get-it spirit of artistry … two college hippies, a mail order course on ice cream making, and a dream is realized!

For a multi-billion dollar company (the two college drop-outs sold their expanding company to Unilever in 2000), Ben and Jerry’s has maintained a relatively impressive social and environmental responsibility record, everything from using exclusively fair trade cocoa to reducing their overall carbon footprint. This people-green-friendly image was augmented by the surrounding environment: the beautiful Vermont scenery, with its rolling farm hills and quaint New England towns, was beautiful even in the wintry rain. We walked the grounds (not without first grabbing a pint of Chubby Hubby for the road) and then visited the nearby town of Stowe. Here are a few snapshots of the scenery.

In just a few hours, the office of the President of the United States will change hands. One man will step down and another will lift his right hand and utter just a few phrases– and with these few, simple and quiet actions, the world will change.

Scenes from the Inauguration Celebration on Sunday, Washington D.C.

I started 2009 with a trip to Mystic Seaport, CT., to reportage the park with the Dalvero Acadamy (including fellow 1104 studio members, Danielle McManus and Rosa Lee). Visting this historical place, including a preservation shipyard and 19th Century seaside village, in the winter was quietly magical. Not a popular wintertime tourist destination, we had the park mostly to ourselves to explore, talk to knowledgeable staff, draw and photograph. As the Saturday afternoon sun soon gave way soft, blue-grey snow, the landscape became even more alive as if the old ships were whispering their long held secrets.

I’ve read about the Amistad, the slave trade, the back-breaking yet lucrative whaling industry. I’ve heard lectures on the way America was built brick by brick in the cities and towns across the United States, the strands of cultural and historical events that run through our society and extend into the present.  But to see, hear, touch and feel it in person hits an emotional chord you can’t experience any other way.  Standing with your feet planted on the Amistad or running your hands over the barnacle-stained side of the Morgan, the oldest wooden whaling ship in the country, you can’t help but add a new dimension to your understanding of history– and how you can and will fit into that story.