No Business Like Snow Business -- If you're a lover of science or nature, one of the more interesting day trips from Burlington is to the little hamlet of Jericho, about a 15- to 20-minute drive northeast on Route 15. Once there, find the Old Red Mill craft shop and museum (tel. 802/899-3225; www.snowflakebentley.com).
This museum showcases America's finest repository of snowflake photographs, courtesy of one Wilson Bentley, the local farmer and amateur naturalist who lived here from 1885 until 1931, devising the world's first camera designed to capture images of snowflakes. He photographed some 5,000 snowflakes in his lifetime, publishing articles in National Geographic and first advancing the idea that no two of them are identical. The story of Bentley's determined pursuit of his studies is as entrancing as the photographs lining the walls, which reveal the amazing variety of crystalline structures created in snowstorms -- many of them breathtakingly beautiful.
The museum is open daily April to December, and from Wednesday to Saturday the rest of the year. There's no admission charge.
