July 12,2026

Made it up to Stowe today. We stayed at the Stowe Motel and Snowdrift. It was a cute little hotel just outside the main sort of town. The hotel had a few different buildings depending on what kind of room your rented. The back building had an old game room with a pool table and foosball. It smelled a little like smoke down there so we never went back after checking it out. There was an outdoor pool (the girls said was super cold) right across from our room. There was also a hot tub (they said that was really hot). Outside each of the rooms were some seats and there were several patio tables and chairs where you could eat. Bikes and DVDs were also available in the lobby for check out. We discovered that behind the restaurant Piecasso there was access to a recreation trail that takes you the few miles into downtown Stowe.

We ate breakfast at Black Cap Coffee. It had a great view of Main Street and Stowe Community church. The church itself dates back to 1863. In 1920 several church group joined together to create the first nondenominational churches in the U.S. it was a quiet Sunday morning so we decided to walk around town and get some cute pictures of the pups at different palaces.

After leaving town we headed out to Mt. Mansfield to take the gondola up the mountain. We had the pups practice getting into an out of use gondola before they had to jump into the moving one.

Once the top of the mountain we hiked some on the service road. There were trails you could take up the cliff, but we didn’t have to correct shoes so we stuck to the easy trails. it was a beautiful day at the top on the peak. At the top was a gift shop, restaurant, and waffle stand. We saw lots of people who brought lunch up and sat at the picnic tables. In the summer you can take the gondola up and down, hike up and take the gondola down or take the gondola up and hike down, or hike up and down. We did see people hiking all the way down. Not sure exactly how far the hike was, we were told the ride up the gondola was 12 minutes.

On our way back into town we saw the farmers market was going on so we stopped. It had maybe 1 stand that had veggies but really it was a bunch of other items. Lots of food booths that one could grab lunch. We decided to grab a Maple Créeme. This was probably are least favorite and most expensive one we had.

After a quick stop at the hotel we decided to walk over to Piecasso for lunch. They had a large selection of food and nice outdoor seating. Sadly the girl at the front didn’t understand what a service dog was and sat us where pets are allowed to sit. Another dog didn’t arrive until we were done which was fine.

After lunch and some relaxation time we then headed down to Waterbury to the Ben and Jerry’s factory. The tour started with a video about Ben and Jerry’s and then we got to see the processing set up. We learned that the staff works in 12 hr shifts. The processing system only allows for 1 flavor to be made at a time. They will produce the ice cream flavor for 72 hrs and then spend 12 hrs cleaning everything by hand before starting a new flavor. The are 3 production locations for ice cream. 2 in Vermont and 1 in Europe. The 2nd location in Vermont has 5 processing systems, so it can make 5 flavors at during a 72 hr window. The last part of the tour you got to taste ice cream. This day it was Marshmallow Sky.

After the tour we had to do some measuring with the dogs and Jennah.

Since we were at Ben and Jerry’s we had to get another scoop of ice cream!

After we left Ben and Jerry’s we tried to vacuum out the rental car, but sadly it stole our coins. We went back to the hotel and the girls went swimming. Then it was time to start packing for the end of our trip.