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I tried to have dinner in Bethel tonight. I really did. Same with Royalton. I drove through both towns looking for a restaurant that would satisfy my jones for “Local Character” in small-town Vermont. By the time I drove through the Eye of the Needle, I figured I was out of luck.

More on that in a moment.

Today I stepped out of my normal, Montpelier-centered duties and took a field trip to West Haven, a tiny town about 20 miles west of Rutland on the New York border. It’s budget season, and these meetings are easier when done face-to-face.

The drive from Montpelier is two hours, so I had a lot of car time today. There was about 30 miles on the Interstate, but the rest of the trip is what I call “classic Vermont” driving. Classic Vermont driving is defined by the landscape. Vermont’s terrain, first and foremost, consists of mountains. (“Verde Monts” = Green Mountains, remember.) The choice is to either build the roads over the mountains, or between them. Most Vermont roads have wisely been built between the mountains.

The paths through the mountains for the most part follow classic pre-automobile trails. In some cases, the roads feel hardly wider than a carriage path. This is because the glaciers didn’t have the decency to put a lot of space between the hills. Add to this the fact that the slopes are generally too steep for either housing or agriculture, and the valleys are downright cozy. For much of the drive along routes 107 and 100 through the center of Vermont, the spaces between the slopes are probably less than ½ mile wide. Tucked in this space, along with the road, are houses and farmland and, usually, a river. Water, after all, follows the lowland and it’s natural for the road to follow the river. I have seen no place where this is more true than Vermont. The buildings and fences are so close to the road that it sometimes feels like you are trespassing on private property. At other times it’s just you and the river. Villages pop up in places where there is a little more space between the hills.

Then there are the valleys, which are simply spectacular. West Haven is in a region known as the Southern Lake Champlain Valley. This is, as the name implies, the valley surrounding the southern part of Lake Champlain and the rivers feeding from it. Much of this area was a big(ger) lake a very long time ago. Now the valley is rolling hills with the mountains forming a picture-postcard backdrop.

Of course, if you give people room to spread out, they will. This brings us to Rutland. I’ve been to Rutland before – I actually went to a friend’s wedding there about 15 years ago. Rutland’s name isn’t pretty, nor is it’s reputation. It’s big (for Vermont) and crowded (for Vermont) with lots of cars and box stores and strip malls.

It’s not that Rutland is so bad compared to most of the country, mind you. It probably falls somewhere between North Conway, NH (pretty mountains, tons of shopping centers) and Bangor, Maine (lots of people, sprawling at the edges) from an aesthetic standpoint. It’s just that, compared with the rest of the area, Rutland comes as a bit of a shock. You’re driving through these little towns that hardly register on the maps, that are just oozing with the rugged, rustic character of Vermont. Suddenly, you’re in Rutland. You could be in anywhere, USA.

It’s the little towns in Vermont that are so appealing to me. They are so small and out of the way that nobody would ever consider putting a McDonald’s in them, much less an Applebee’s or an Olive Garden. Each of these towns is its own little treasure, with its own little businesses, stores and restaurants.

Or not.

I decided that, on my drive back to Montpelier, I would stop in one of these little towns for dinner and soak up the local flavor. I had good luck on the way down, stopping at the Vermont General Store in Pittsfield for a sandwich to go. The store had a terrific supply of specialty and natural foods, and an old-fashioned looking beverage cooler bursting with local brews. While the staff weren’t in any rush to hand me my lunch and get me out the door (typical of Vermont), the people were extraordinarily friendly, and my sandwich was terrific.

On the way back, things didn’t work out quite so well. The very things that make the place so charming also make it difficult to find a restaurant. There just aren’t a lot of places that can support many restaurants. I didn’t want to stop at Killington or a mountain lodge, because those places are designed for tourists, not locals. When you do come across a restaurant, you’re often coming around a bend at 50 mph. Due to the two-ton pickup truck in your rear view, a quick slam on the brakes is out of the question. Inevitably, this is followed by a windy stretch of road with river on the left, mountain slope on the right, about two feet of breakdown lane on either side of the road, and no hope of turning around for several miles.

I finally decided that I would stop in Bethel, the charming (of course) little town where I would pick up the Interstate. Bethel was actually a pretty good sized-town. Lots of little shops on the main street. This being after 5 pm, all were closed. There were couple of convenience stores that might have had a deli, but that’s not what I was looking for. I drove to the edge of town on the three major roads. Nothing.

Undeterred, I recalled that when I exited the Interstate earlier in the day, I had seen a sign that promised food if I headed in the other direction. This turned out to be Royalton. I saw a sign for the Fox Run Inn and Family Restaurant. I figured I was in business, until I saw the Realtor’s sign out front. Royalton also featured the Village Pizza shop, which looked to have counter service, laminated seats, and a beverage cooler in the seating area. So much for your frigging local flavor!

It was soon thereafter that I passed through what I have dubbed the Eye of the Needle. This was a narrow underpass below some train tracks, wide enough for only one vehicle at a time. Of course, there are sharp corners coming into the Eye from either direction, so the trick is to slow down and, in the absence of headlights on the other side of the Eye, gunning it for dear life.

As near as I could tell, the Eye symbolically separated the part of Royalton where there is “not much”, from the part where there is “even less”. At this point, I decided to cash in my chips and head back to Montpelier, where there is much local flavor that I have yet to experience.

It’s unusual for me to get in the car once I park it at the hotel, because there are so many places to eat packed within a few blocks that I usually walk everywhere. Since I was already in the car, I took the opportunity to eat at “The Pig” (again, as dubbed by me). The Pig is Finkerman’s Riverside Barbeque, on Route 2 in Montpelier. Finkerman’s has the kind of roadhouse feel that I like in my BBQ joints, but is also kid-friendly and was quite busy this Wednesday night. It’s a different kind of feel for Montpelier, a little more of a “marketing concept” atmosphere, but kind of funky nonetheless. The staff was very friendly, and there are a lot of local microbrews on tap. Alas, the service was kind of slow (one shouldn’t have to wait too long for pulled pork) and the food was ho-hum. It seems like a fun place to get together with friends, but it falls short of places near my home, like Buck’s Naked BBQ in Freeport or Beale Street in Bath (and South Portland and Augusta).

And so ended my big adventure for the day. My evening meal was a bit of a letdown, but I truly enjoyed driving the byways of this little state and learning more about my home away from home.