The other weekend, I went to Burlington Vermont. I traveled up north from Plattsburgh to Rouses Point and took the bridge on over to Grand Isle. Besides a little sign welcoming me to Vermont, and road signs that were a little bit different, Grand Isle wasn't all that different from New York. There were farms, gas stations, poor people living in rural houses, and lots of nice little fishing spots.

Yet Vermont was different: it was a soverign state. Both New York and Vermont are part of the United States, and are compelled by federal mandates and law to act somewhat alike, Vermont is almost totally soverign over it's people. As a New Yorker and a Political Scientist, that fascinated me. How could one line between states make them so differentt?

I tried to reconcil the differences between the state and the land throughout the day I spent in northern Vermont. Some distinctions were obvious: vechicle and traffic law was subtily different as documented by the 50 MPH maximum speed limit and the ease that I could use the gas peddle on my truck. Othere weren't so obvious like differences on how people ran their farms.

I went down to Church Street in Burlington. It was a beautiful outdoor mall along what once was a busy street dominated by cars. Many streets were as polluted and dirty as your typical city street, but those limited to just pedistrarians where nice. Watching the sunset at the Burlington harbor was impressive. The rolling hills of Burlington made the city beautiful. Some of this was caused by the choices made by the city, some of it was natural. Again, my experience of Northern Vermont was both one of unique goverance and shared natural beauty.

Looking around in Vermont, I found a largely rural state. There are a lot of mountains up here in Vermont, but at the same time, it is just the other side of Lake Champlain and as such is pretty impressive. Vermonters are mountain people far more then New Yorkers, and there is far more mountains and prime farmland then rolling farm country that we know so well in the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys. Somehow I felt so alone here.

It also seems that dairy in Vermont is as important to agriculture as it is into New York. There are many farms in Northern Vermont just like there are above the Adirondack Park in New York. Yet, somehow being a Vermont dairy farmer has much more prestidge, thanks to the efforts by the government to promote Vermont agriculture. New York produces far more milk products then Vermont does, but somehow being a New York farmer just isn't what being a Vermont farmer is. Another example of soverign government policy would be differences on open burning and the regulations on manure spreading.

Those are my inital observations of another state. Vermont isn't New York. There are many things that are obviously different and other things that are more subtable in it's differences. Vermont is still part of the United States, and part of our earth, so many things are alike. I am amazed.