have more trails on the other side of the village, around Mount Tom, in a
kind of national forest for which they lease trail rights. The view from
Mount Tom is tremendous.(overlooks the village of Woodstock).

This is the Marsh-Billings-ROCKEFELLER National Historical Park,
Vermont's only national park. The forest and other nearby property was
given (or, as the National Park Service puts it, on their Web site:
"gifted") to the Park Service by Laurance Rockefeller. Much of what
makes Woodstock such a gorgeous place to visit is the generosity of the
Rockefellers. Among other things, they paid to put the electric lines
underground (Stowe is trying to raise money from the local chamber of
commerce to bury its electric lines), to give the town that
much-sought-after-in-Vermont 19th century appearance, if you can ignore
the constant traffic on U.S. 4 which buzzes right through the middle of
town. The original owner of the Rockefeller property, George Perkins
Marsh, wrote an early book on the subject of conservation. So the
National Park Service has taken that as the theme for the
M-B-ROCKEFELLER NHP. However, the rangers are given to House and Garden
tours centering on the beautiful Rockefeller residence.

Anyway, glad to see you had a good trip to Vermont (and, although you
didn't mention it, to that duty-free shopping zone across the river).

Lew Lasher
Stowe, Vermont and Cambridge, Massachusetts