High on A Hill Lived a Lonely Goatherd

 Because the 30th anniversary is the diamond anniversary, Lizzie and I decided to continue the celebration of our friendiversary to Stowe (VT).  We went up on a Friday afternoon, so didn't arrive until after 7, leaving just enough time to eat dinner and polish off a bottle of pre-mixed margarita.  Classy!  Saturday we crammed in quite a few activities, including exploring Mt. Mansfield and Smuggler's Notch (used for smuggling booze and what not back in the day) and of course, the Von Trapp Family lodge.

Here you see me coercing Lizzie into doing her best "THE HILLS ARE ALIVEEEEEE" spin with the mountain backdrop.  After fleeing nazi Austria, Maria and Georg settled here in Vermont in 1942.  Poor Georg died in 1947 (lung cancer.  don't smoke, kids) and Maria and the kids (including the three she had with Georg--That's like 10 total) expanded their house into a ski lodge.  This ski lodge burned down (killing at least one guest) and on the site they rebuilt an "Austrian-style" lodge because the von trapps super know how to monetize everything.

So the Sound of Music is obviously fictionalized, but interestingly, Maria wasn't super stoked about marrying Georg--he was 25 years her senior--but she did love the kids, and so ended up marrying him anyway.  In her own words:  "I really and truly was not in love. I liked him but didn't love him. However, I loved the children, so in a way I really married the children. I learned to love him more than I have ever loved before or after."  Glad that worked out.  I was always kind of team Baroness von Schraeder and the boarding school idea.

Georg and Maria are interred at the lodge, in a fenced off area I initially thought was reserved for on-lodge weddings.  No.  I was very, very wrong.