Stowe, Vermont ... Week One

otomola
Jul 30, 2025
9 min read

Updated: Aug 2, 2025

July 21-28, 2025

I drove from Danbury to Stowe, Vermont on Monday, July 21. I came up here take a break from travel, see some new people, do new things, and generally have some fun.

I rented an apartment for thirty-one days in a farmhouse north of town, a short way off of Route 100. The apartment is spacious, has a great bed, and is very comfortable. It is on the first floor. and has a living room, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, totaling about 1100 square feet along with a glass enclosed porch that adds another 700 square feet.

There's a big yard and plenty of flowers. There are roosters and chickens that roam the property, about twenty birds overall, though it is hard to count them all at one time as they roam the place like they own it.

Cornfields are abundant around the property. The corn is in the 4-6 foot tall range. Rows and rows and rows. It looks healthy and beautiful. There is also grazing land for a handful of cows that live next door: hay, wildflowers, and weeds.

Past one of those cornfields, about eight miles west, is a mountain range with numerous high points running in a north-south direction. Mount Mansfield, at 4,393 feet, is the highest one, and it is also the highest peak in Vermont.

Mansfield and the range were at one time situated on the edge of the North American continent, formed in the Taconian orogeny (around 450 million years ago) that involved the collision of tectonic plates, causing the rocks to fold and be pushed westward. The later Acadian orogeny (around 360 million years ago) further uplifted the region.

It’s mind-boggling to think about timescales of such duration. To put it in perspective, these mountains are older than dinosaurs, who lived between 245 and 66 million years ago, in a time known as the Mesozoic Era. Primates first appeared in the fossil record nearly 55 million years ago, and may have originated as far back as the Cretaceous Period. Humans (homo sapiens) arrived on the scene only 300,000 years ago according to the fossil record.

The road also has a farm with a large barn about a hundred yards away. I wonder if this farmhouse was once the central home for the farm. There is also a working farm about three-quarters of a mile down Route 100, and that may be the owner of the many acres of cornfields.

I am surprised to see so much traffic on Route 100. The Stowe area seems more densely populated than my vison of a quiet, quaint, New England town. This is probably partly due to tourism. The end result is I won’t be riding on Route 100 in this area very much. There are other, less trafficked roads to go where I want.

Route 100 goes right through downtown Stowe. “Downtown” is a short section of road, maybe a half mile long, populated with numerous businesses: restaurants, lodges, general stores, coffees shops, galleries, etc. It is touristy, crowded when I rode through on my bike. There’s one stop sign in town, at the intersection of Routes 108 and 100, and traffic was backed up for it.

I have been enjoying bike rides and walks with views of the cornfields and mountains. On Wednesday, I did a ride on Route 100 to Morrisville, then returned via Randolph Road. It was about twelve miles round-trip. This was when I realized how much traffic there was on 100. Even though there’s a good shoulder, I will stick with other roads when possible. I also rode south into Stowe and eventually ended up finding the Stowe Recreation Trail, a paved multiuse trail that runs about five miles from downtown up towards Stowe Mountain Resort.

Later in the day, I was sitting on the porch reading when I noticed several bike riders gathering in the road, seven of them. They were stopped and lined up single file, and then one by one, separated by 30 to 60 seconds (the time between them did not seem uniform) they started riding. It looked like a time trial. Sometime later, I noticed a rider return, a woman in a green jersey. She stopped her bike and was standing there, looking up the road, and I went out to talk with her. Her name was Kate. It was in fact a time trial, run by the Stowe Bicycle Club. They have time trails at various places in the area, running them on Wednesdays from May through August. She told me go to their website and it lists locations and dates. Although there is an official date and time, if one cannot make it then they can ride it at some other time. Each location has a two week window in which to do the ride. Riders post their times to the website. It’s an honor system.

On Thursday, I rode Randolph Road north six miles to Morrisville, where I found the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail. This trail runs 93 miles along an old railroad bed between St. Johnsbury and Swanton. It is hard packed dirt-gravel. I took it for a few miles and departed in favor a Route 15 near the town of Hyde Park. Riding the rail trail was okay, but it was slow going compared to riding on roads, and I did not want to ride another thirteen miles on dirt to Cambridge Junction. Maybe another time I will ride it longer. Route 15 had less traffic than Route 100. It rolled slightly as it took me through the towns of Johnsonville and Cambridge Junction. I turned off onto Route 108 in Jeffersonville, where a sign notified me it was eight miles to Smuggler’s Notch and eighteen miles back to Stowe. The route started to climb steeply right away outside of Jeffersonville, then it leveled off after about two miles.

At the top of this hill there was a dirt road on my right that intersected Route 108 at about a ninety degree angle. A car came out as I approached. I was around 50-60 yards before the intersection. It stopped, then turned left onto 108 and drove opposite my direction, no problem.

Then a pickup truck on the dirt road approached the intersection and slowed as I was riding along. I was now about five yards from the intersection when the pickup slowed, but did not stop, and suddenly the truck accelerated. I could not believe this was happening. How could the driver not see me? I accelerated as quickly as I could, trying to pass before the truck would hit me, and at last second the driver hit the brakes, a shocked look on her face. The pickup stopped about two feet from my bike. Another two feet and I would have been t-boned. Apparently, she simply did not see me. She slowed, but did not stop at the stop sign, and hit the gas thinking it was clear. After I passed, she continued on, going towards Jeffersonville. She did not stop and get out and say anything.

Note: in 2005, while riding on Mill Plain Road in Danbury, a woman ran a stop sign coming out of Prindle Lane. I slammed into her car, face first into the driver-side window, losing six teeth in the process. The impact destroyed the bike's front wheel, bending it several inches, and bent the bike fame as well. I was fortunate that I had no broken bones and that I was not a second faster, where she would have probably just run me over. Always STOP AT STOP SIGNS, FULL STOP, and LOOK BOTH WAYS!

Continuing on, the road here was less steep, somewhat flat for a mile or so. I stopped at Smuggler’s Notch RV Campground and filled a water bottle. I had started the day with three bottles of Gatorade and had finished two of them. It was a hot, humid day, and I was definitely going to need more fluids. The campground owner, Will, was welcoming and happy to let me fill my water bottles. It was a very good place to stop.

Not too much farther up the road I passed Smuggler’s Notch Resort. The road became steep again for the next three miles up to the actual pass, Smuggler’s Notch, between Mount Mansfield on one side and Spruce Peak (3,092’) on the other. Smuggler’s Notch tops out at 2,170’. (My altimeter was at 508’ in Jeffersonville.) The last mile was totally in the shade, a curving, narrow road densely populated on both side trees with trees of the Vermont State Forest.

Friday morning on my early walk I noticed a dryness in my throat. It felt like I was developing a sore throat, a possible cold, so I did not ride Friday as I had planned. Saturday the dryness had disappeared, and it seemed I was not getting a cold after all, but I still did not ride. I don’t know how the mechanism works, of a cold spreading into one’s lungs, but in my mind, deep forceful breathing might move it there more than less forceful breathing. Cycling is definitely an activity that promotes deep breathing, so I opted out for a few days, doing long, slow walks instead, around ten miles each day.

I was back to riding on Monday, doing a loop route north on Randolph Road, passing through Morrisville, then heading south on Stagecoach Road. Stagecoach brought me back to Route 100 about two miles south of Randolph. I completed the sixteen mile loop and then turned around completing it in the opposite direction. Stagecoach has some hills, and I ended up just a few hundred feet less climbing than I did going up Smuggler's Notch.

As I was riding up one hill, I passed a house with some large rocks placed in front of it. I like when people use rocks to add some character to the yard, as if they were art pieces, part of something creative. I do not know if that was what the owner intended. There was a man working in the yard. I shouted out to him that the yard looked great. He yelled back "Thanks" and started talking about his property.

His Dad acquired the house in 1959. It was a "Sears-Roebuck special" he told me. I had never heard of these. Apparently, from 1908 to 1942, Sears sold fabricated homes, called Sears Modern Homes, and shipped them via railroads. Buyers would assemble them or have someone do it for them. Over 70,000 were sold.

He had the boulders put into place with heavy equipment, telling me that over time they has sunk into the ground somewhat. He also had lifted the house on jacks, replaced the concrete block foundation with something stronger that enabled him to add two bedrooms with nine foot ceilings in the basement. He was currently working on making a chicken coup mouse-proof, as it seems they had become a nuisance. He told me in detail how he was remedying that situation.

With my three days off from riding, I spent a good deal of time playing my flute and drums. I have had the flute for over a year, but the drums are new.

I was inspired to acquire the flute, a cedar wood flute, Native American style, as a result of an experience on the beach at Fort Pickens Campground in Florida. Fort Pickens is part of Gulf Islands National Seashore, a beautiful park with miles of sandy beach on the Gulf of Mexico. A couple was walking on the beach, and the woman was playing a flute. It sounded so nice that I instantly said to myself, “I want to be able to do that!” I talked with her the next day about her flute. Long story short, I bought a flute, from Stellar Flutes in Washington State, a couple of months later when I returned to Danbury.

Since obtaining my flute, it is amazing how many places I have noticed flute parts in songs, especially Native American flute being utilized, such as in Ocean of Subtle Flames by Chronotope Project. These Native American style flutes are utilized in a number of areas outside of traditional Native American music.

The drums are new, acquired this week, a set of Meinl Headliner Bongo Drums.

Both instruments felt a bit awkward initially. Learning to play them is doing something new, hand-ear-eye-mind coordination, and there comes with it this idea of “How do I sound?” along with a degree of self-consciousness. It’s a learning curve. There are many YouTube videos to help one advance on one’s path.

Unfortunately, I might have an issue with playing them. It seems that the act of playing them does something to my lower back. There is a very slight motion that takes place, moving my torso slightly back and forth, rotating ever so slightly left to right and back again, as I play the bongos. It probably does not even look like I am moving. As slight as it is, it irritates something, puts a strain on my lower back, in the sacral area. I am thinking I might have to return them, declare myself a non-drummer, as has been the case since graduating eighth grade and ending my days in St. Joe’s School Marching Band. I played the snare drum in the band. I’ll try using the bongos a few more days. I ordered a stand for them. I hope putting them on the stand and adjusting the height properly will help resolve any issues. Then I can drum away …

What's that third item in the photo, situated on the right? It's a Singing Bowl. The next question someone might have is, "What's a Singing Bowl?" Singing bowls are metal and/or crystal bowls used to deepen meditation and promote relaxation. They produce sustained sounds and vibrations when hit or circled with a mallet. They have a long history originating in the Himalayas and are utilized in a variety of environments, including music and sound therapy.

This article in Healthline provides some more information, as does this article, Therapeutic effects of singing bowls: A systematic review of clinical studies, in the journal Integrative Medicine Research.