Vermont Views Tourists Photograph Memories, and Leave in a Cloud of Exhaust

Author: Liz Lathey

This summer, I experienced a phenomenon that I did not realize is as prevalent in Vermont as it actually is: the bus tour. As a waitress at an inn in Killington, Vt., I was privy to the subculture of those people we waitstaff referred to affectionately as "the bus people."
I'm sure that many of you, as do I, have various relatives who partake in these tours. If you're like me, you probably assumed they travel to interesting parts of the country and sightsee, toting along cameras most likely manufactured at the dawn of the Industrial Age. Well, they do travel around and they do have the cameras, but the trips these people take seem to me more like first-grade field trips than interesting national expeditions. If I were to say that some place is interesting and fun to visit, Killington in the summer is certainly not one of them. In the winter the place is crazy with tourists, but in the summer it is about as remarkable as a ski resort in July. Which is exactly what it is.
I remember the people on one of the bus trips bantering at their table about their trip to the Rutland farmer's market that day. First of all, I'd like to say that Rutland is a perfectly fine town, but I just cannot imagine actually wanting to visit there on vacation. And going to a farmer's market seems to make it all the funnier. I mean, if I had paid as much as those bus people probably did to go on their tour, I would definitely have a problem with wandering around the Rutland Wal-Mart parking lot checking out baskets of zucchini and homemade soap.
Luckily, the farmer's market episode is the worst trip to which the bus people were subjected. Most of the tours went on the standard trips to the Shelburne Museum, the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory and the Ben & Jerry's Factory. Although I thoroughly enjoyed all of these places when I visited, I was also under the age of 12 when I saw these tourist sites. Maybe it's just me, but I find that there is something rather amusing about a group of 50 people, all over the age of 65, shuffling around the Ben & Jerry's Factory trying to snag as many free samples of Heath Bar Crunch as possible. I can just imagine them shoving each other out of the way to see in the window to the factory. Pure entertainment.
The thing about the bus people was that we could always tell who they were. When we had bus groups stay at the inn, there were also always regular customers who would also eat in the restaurant. We referred to these guests as the "normal people," differentiating them from "the bus people." The bus people were pretty easy to tell apart. First of all, they always asked us to turn off the air-conditioning as soon as they entered the restaurant. I've noticed that they all seemed to consider any temperature under 80 degrees "chilly."
Also, they would often sit at large tables of 10 or 12. These would be the tables that needed everything that we serve cooked to their specifications, until it did not look like anything remotely similar to the original menu item. Also, there were always drinkers. Every once in a while, there would be a large table at which everyone ordered a drink, and then ordered two or three subsequent drinks until they were yelling and laughing at the top of their lungs about the funniest thing that had happened on the bus that day.
There were some positive aspects to the bus people, though. Many of them acted very grandmotherly to me and the other waitresses who were around my age. I know I got a lot of tips because of them seeing me carry large trays around the restaurant. Whenever I heard the phrase, "Look at that poor little girl with that big tray," I knew a tip was on the way. I often considered stacking a tray with a bunch of empty plates and walking around just to pick up more tips.
I sometimes would give the bus people little extras to make their stay in Vermont more pleasant, just because so many of them seemed so excited to be here. As their waitress, I was the authority on everything Vermont, even though half the time I had no idea about what they wanted to know. I know that for everything they asked me, I must have given quite a few people wrong directions to Woodstock, misinformation about Robert Frost's life in Vermont and bad suggestions about what they could do in their off time. But, no matter how much the bus people annoyed us sometimes, one thing I know for sure is I never recommended that anyone go to the Rutland farmer's market.