Most of today was spent driving north into Canada with no scenic byways along the way. I try to average about 200 miles a day but this was the first day of this trip that I hit that target.<\/p>\n
My only stop was just outside Barre where I took the quarry and factory tour at Rock of Ages<\/em>. Vermont is known world-wide as the<\/strong> source for high quality granite and the company “Rock of Ages” pretty much owns all the quarries in the area (as well as others around the States and in Canada). The quarry tour was pretty much a repeat of the Ben and Jerry’s experience – a single stop overlooking the scene with explanations of what was going on – but our guide had worked in the quarry for 35 years and was able to add a lot of color and background to what we were seeing. It is amazing to see how cleanly the rock splits both vertically and horizontally.<\/p>\n The factory tour was, again, a viewpoint as the workers below fashioned the granite from this and other company\u00a0 quarries into headstones, monuments and memorials. The quality of the work done here is so well regarded that they were asked to make the two major end-pieces for the new WWII monument in Washington, DC and performed the carving and finishing of the famous Vietnam Wall there. They also provided the stone for several state capitols and iconic buildings as far away as Paris, Dubai and Seoul.<\/p>\n The gray granite removed from this quarry is considered the best in the world for memorials and sculptures, being fine grained, evenly colored and very hard. The light blue water in the quarry is used to lubricate the drills and other equipment and also acts as a settling pool for the dust produced as blocks are removed. At 600 feet, this is the deepest granite quarry in the world but the layer of granite is thought to go down 10,000 feet. Monday Sep 17, 2018 Map and road video – Barre, VT to L\u00e9vis, QC Most of today was spent driving north into Canada with no scenic byways along the way. I try to average about 200 miles a day but this was the first day of this trip that I hit that target. My only … Continue reading Routine Cross-Border Journey<\/span> ![\"Vermont](\"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Vermont-Quarry-1.jpg\")
\nJust a few of the granite blocks being made into memorials in a corner of the factory.![\"Vermont](\"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Vermont-granite-factory.jpg\")
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