Stowe, Morrisville, and Stowe again, Saturday, August 2, 2025
I decided to skip the morning swim in favor of a walk deep into the woods below our house. Flowers greet us along our walkway.
Following the sleigh road and a series of mountain bike trails led me far down Trapp Hill.
The maple tree we saw growing out of a stump last year has grown!
I passed a couple of old New England farm walls.
A hayrick in the party tent meadow.
Round Top from the Tent Meadow.
I met Sue at the pool and we lazed around a bit before going home for a quick lunch. We then hopped in the car for a drive to Morrisville; we hoped to connect the two rides we’d already done along the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail by riding from Morristown east to Wolcott.
My idiocy ruined our plans. I hadn’t been carrying keys: car has a phone key, house a card key. So when I went to take bikes off the rack, I quickly found that I had no key for the security cable. Sue was nice about it, but I felt like a heel. We retreated to Stowe, fetched the key, and ended up having a very nice ride on the Rec Path. It was nice, that is, until I nearly ran over a dog and had to do an emergency stop that almost put me over the bars. On the way out, we had passed a couple with two dogs on long leads who only reluctantly made way for cyclists; it was if they were out to cause trouble. On the way back I saw them again and yelled “excuse me” plenty early. They slowly stepped aside–one on each side of the path–but made no effort to rein in their dogs. So one of them wandered right toward me, with his leash taking up the entire path. At least this idiot encountered even bigger idiots!
We had looked forward to dinner at Harrison’s for our final night. It is the toughest table in town, but I had snagged reservation weeks before. The restaurant is charming, with low beamed ceilings and a real Vermont feel. Unfortunately. the food was uneven: a nice appetizer of spicy tuna on crispy wantons, and my lamb was excellent, but Sue’s trout was overcooked and the accompaniments were blah.
The last evening is always a bit sad, but we had enjoyed a remarkable, very active two weeks in Vermont and had nothing to complain about!