Stowe, VT

Vermont was the last leg of a three-month road trip. It was a great way to end the journey, even though the leaves were not quite at their peak.

Visiting Stowe, the little surrounding towns and the Smugglers Notch area left me with memories I'll never forget.

State Route 108 is a scenic byway that travels between Stowe and Jeffersonville, passing through Smuggler's Notch.. It's an awesome drive, especially this time of year. It's a 3.5-mile narrow, winding forested road with occasional boulder outcroppings. It passes by the foot of Mt. Mansfield, Vermont's highest mountain. The road is restricted to cars; no travel trailers, large RVs and such are allowed. Called Smugglers Notch Scenic Highway, it is Vermont's first official scenic highway.

Smuggler's Notch was once a corridor for smuggling cattle. It also was a hideout for pirates on the nearby Lake Champlain. Today it's one of Vermont's more popular ski resorts.

There's a sweet country road that bypasses the hustle and bustle of Stowe's town ccenter. It was pretty quiet, so I suspect many tourists hadn't yet discovered it.

The von Trapp family home, now a lodge, is in Stowe. The von Trapps are known worldwide as an Austrian singing family as portrayed in the musical "The Sound of Music" with Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. The lodge today, called Trapp Family Lodge, is a 96-room alpine lodge owned and operated by Johannes von Trapp, the oldest son of Baron Georg and Maria. All seven of the original von Trapps are deceased now, the last one being Maria, portrayed as Louisa in the movie. She passed away in 2014. The family members are buried in a small cemetery on the grounds of the lodge.

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This photo was taken with my back to the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe. The lodge slogan is "A little bit of Austria...a lot of Vermont." This is the view from many of the windows of the lodge rooms.

A very short walk, perhaps .5 miles out and back, near Stowe, leads to Bingham Falls. At that point, one can walk to the left or to the right to see more of the falls. The trails in those directions are not as easy as the portion from the parking lot since they involve a bit of rock maneuvering. Because of the dampness, there were loads of various kinds of mushrooms growing.