Gondola's....Trapp Family Lodge....Stowe...Ben & Jerry's....a busy day

After working 1/2 day on Friday we hit the road running....was time to drive through The Notch...and into Stowe. The Notch got its name because they literally notched the road thru the mountain...it's cut in a zig-zag fashion. It's very interesting to drive and it gets closed in the winter, but it's fun!! Once you are thru the notch you quickly come to the Stowe Mountain Resort and Ski area. We rode the Gondola to the top that connects  Mt Mansfield that's 4398 feet  to Spruce Peak....we could not have had better weather...it was gorgeous and made for a great ride up....was $25 roundtrip. Had we had more time, we would have liked to ride up and walk down, but we had many things to see and do today....maybe next time.

At the top was The Cliff House for lunch. Was much nicer than I had expected. We both had wonderful Butternut Squash soup and I had fish tacos too...they were very good.

We walked around a bit and headed down....had many more things to see.

We'd just been to the highest peak in Vermont...cool!!!

Next stop, Von Trapp Family Lodge....remember The Sound of Music....well, when the family finally made their homestead in America they landed in Stowe, Vt. Maria saw the top of this mountain and said it reminded her of Austria, so that's where they bought and built their home. You can pay to do a tour and hear the families story, it's very good. I did that the last time I was here and Karen didn't want to so I showed here around as best I could and we moved on. The family lived here, would sing and practice and farm, and would still tour as a family group.  Then people started asking if they could come hear them, so they began to see where they could turn part of their home into guest quarters and make money. So what started small, grew into a huge business. The original house burnt, and when the rebuilding happened, it was made much more into a lodge of guest rooms. 

Perhaps you can enlarge this and read the family history, this is posted right inside the lobby

This is the family cemetery ...Maria, The Captain and some of the children are buried here.

The view that Maria fell in love with.....I can see why!!!

We stopped at the restaurant/bakery that is across the street from the lodge and got a doughnut type of thing. It was round with a cream filling to die for....Austrian pastries are the best!

No trip to Stowe, Vermont is complete without a trip to Ben and Jerry's Ice Creamery.....they make it right here!!! When you first arrive you are greeted by this bus that they used in the beginning to serve and sell ice cream.....

You absolutely have to visit the Flavor Graveyard....this is for all the flavors that "didn't make it" in Corporate World....humm....I can think of some other things that might belong here!!!

Jack Daniels Ice Cream...hummmmm

That's A LOT of cream, milk and sugar.....but their ice cream is awesome!!

The Timeline is very interesting..........you can take a tour and then get a free sample of a new flavor if they are making at that time. They were not making when we were there, so we looked around, I got an amazing chocolate milkshake and off we went.

The wall of flavors....cute way to showcase them with empty pint containers.

Who knew there were so many ice cream scoops!!!!

We headed to visit the Cabot Cheese store and Champlain Chocolates. Where they make Cabot cheese was about a 1.5hr drive so we skipped that....the store was pretty amazing. Samples of every flavor cheese they make, as well as dips, popcorn....and other products. I'm sure it's lunch for some folks!!!

Champlain chocolates are not as good as Snowflake and cost lots more, so we did a very quick peak in there. The Cider House is in this area too, I had been and Karen didn't want to go, so we headed for downtown Stowe to shop. It's small and does not take long to cover. It was getting busy and being a Friday afternoon during foliage we hit some traffic, but was not too bad. I got some Christmas shopping done and we saw a wedding party walk down Main St with a bag piper....cool. Timing is everything!

It was getting late and we had no desire to drive The Notch in the dark...so we headed home.

We had decided we might eat at the restaurant at Smuggs, or one that is very close. When we got onto the floor where our unit was, for the 2nd night the condo next to us had been cooking and the foyer smelled wonderful. This time I decided to tell them they were killing us with the lovely aroma!! It was 2 couples, very nice folks, they laughed and said "thank you for the compliment". We went inside, heated up some Glogg and sat on the deck for a bit. Karen heard a knock on our door...it was our "cooking" neighbors offering us leftovers....from tonight and last night.....they just wanted 2 bowls from our unit to put some in....uhhh......SURE....wow, another free dinner...THANK YOU. We had some salad left from last night and a little bread from lunch, so we were good to go.....was nice to be able to stay in.

Tomorrow, Saturday we had to get up and out and make it to a small town parade and fair by 930a....so off to bed we went. We slept so good with the windows open and the cool air coming in.....fall is awesome.