A PERFECT fall day in Vermont (Waterbury & Stowe) 🍎🍂 | Apple Cider Donuts, Corn Maze, & MORE!

Today, our goal is to have the perfect fall day here in Vermont. Woo! We're just about to check out of the Best Western Plus we've been staying at here in Waterbury, and our plan today is to drive from Waterbury to Stowe along the Green Mountain Byway, which is a scenic drive that connects the two towns, and we're going to make a bunch of fall stops along the way. When we think of fall, the number one drink we think of plug us technically number two after my favorite, pumpkin spice, is apple cider. And just down the road from where we've been staying is the Cold Hollow Cider Mill, which was founded in 1974, and they have self-guided tours, apple cider, hard cider, and apple cider doughnuts to enjoy. Oh my gosh, it smells so good in here. So they don't actually have an orchard on site. They get their Macintosh apples from orchards along Lake Champlain, and we actually saw a delivery of apples this morning, so that was pretty cool. The only orchard they do have is a solar orchard, which is a bunch of solar panels out back that power 60% of the mill. So once the apples arrive, they are washed and then ground into a fine mush that's then pumped to their vintage cloth and rack press that applies 100 tons of pressure onto the apples. All that juice drains down, and then it's pumped to a flash pasteurizer, and then straight to the jugging room. They have this huge tank where you can try some of the cider, so we're going to give it a go. We read that on a busy day, they make 4,000 gallons of cider here. So refreshing. It just tastes just like pure apples, and that's what it is. So a big difference between cider and apple juice. Cider is 100% just pressed apples, whereas juice has additives and a bunch of other stuff in it. This is just straight apple. It's so good. You can't come here and not get an apple cider donut. An apple cider donut is basically a cake donut with apple cider in it, and they have a machine in there. You can watch them making them, and on a busy day, they can make up to 15,000 donuts. I don't think I've ever had an apple cider donut before, but they smell so good. And they have this nice kind of crunch on the outside, but just by touching it, you can tell it's going to be nice and fluffy on the inside. Heck yeah. It tastes just like fall in a donut. It has a nice spice flavor. It's so fresh, too. We watched them make this, and then we got to eat it. I love that crunch on the outside. It's just so moist in there. We also got a hot apple cider to try, but it's way too hot. It's burning our hands, so I think we're going to wait a little bit to try it so we don't just scorch our tongues. But I am going to try the dunk. Now that's apple-y there. Don't worry, Kona's not leaving empty-handed. We got her one of these dog treats that they make out of the apple pumice. One of the most iconic things we think of when we think of New England are covered bridges. I feel like every photo I've seen of New England includes a covered bridge, and there are tons of them around the region. And the reason for this is because in the 19th century, New England bridge makers were trying to protect the beams and just the structure of the bridge, so they covered them and put sides on them to protect them from the harsh New England weather. So I thought it was because they were trying to just cover cars while they drove through, but that's not it. It's actually just to protect the bridge. Vermont has over a hundred covered bridges, boasting more covered bridges per square mile than any other U.S. state. Along the Green Mountain Byway, you can take a turn off to get to this bridge, the Goldbrook Bridge, which was built in 1844 and has a very sad story behind it. It's also known as Emily's Bridge after a girl who hung herself from this bridge after the man she was supposed to elope with never showed up. We have officially made it to Stowe, which is a quintessential New England town, and oh my gosh, it is so freaking cute, at least from what we've seen from the car so far. It has beautiful church steeples and colonial-style buildings tucked in trees and surrounded by the Green Mountains, which makes it a great place to explore any time of the year, whether it's hiking or skiing. The only downside so far is finding parking for a sprinter van. It's proving to be a challenge, but we're hopeful we'll get something soon so we can actually get out of the car and explore. Alright, we're in luck. Found something. If you just get off the main road, plenty of spots. One popular thing to do here in Stowe is to go on the Stowe Recreation Path. It's a five and a half mile one-way pathway that takes you through Stowe by farms and restaurants. It's popular to do by bike, but since we don't own bikes and we've been spending a lot of money on bike rentals, we're just going to experience some of it on foot. One thing that we've never done in the fall is go through a corn maze, so today we're going to change that. We're currently heading to the Percy Farm corn maze, and every year, Paul Percy puts a unique maze in his corn field, and for $8, you can go in and see how fast you can do it. We hear it takes about 30 minutes to an hour, but the record as of right now, or as of the last time I checked, is just under 4 minutes and 5 seconds. Alright, how long do you think it will take for us to get through the corn? Corn maze. I'm going to guess 18 minutes and 36 seconds. I was going to say about 15 minutes and 5 seconds, so we'll see which one of us is closer. Are we going to do this like Price is Right style? As long as you don't go over. Maybe our time predictions might be a little ambitious. When we were paying, they asked you to write down your first name and your phone number, and I was like, what is that for? And so they said if you're out there for longer than an hour, they'll give you a call, so maybe it's more challenging than we thought. Alright, we're at our first tee here. Do we go left, or do we go right? I feel like left is too obvious. Alright. Let's go right. We're at about 4 and a half minutes. Don't think we're anywhere near the ending, so I don't think we're breaking any records today. When we started this, I thought, oh, we're going to finish this so fast, let's just kind of make it take a little longer. And now that we're doing it, I'm starting to be like, oh my god, what if we actually get stuck in here? Like, that's actually kind of a scary feeling to think about, not knowing how to get out of something. So, I don't know. We'll see what happens. I think we're at 9 minutes now. So, we're getting close to the times we said. At least the views are nice as we're stuck in this corn maze forever. That's a head scratcher. Paul, Percy, you've done it again. Less than a minute to get out of here on my predicted time. It's not looking good. We might have found the exit here, but I'm kind of nervous that it's the entrance. Oh no. There's the enter sign. I really don't know. This is so hard. It's kind of amazing if you really think about it. There's the entrance. Oh my gosh. Again, this is hard. We just made it back out to the entrance again. Okay, we're trying to find things that we've seen before. Try to find little landmarks so we can tell if we've been a certain way and if it's failed us. Oh, we have not been here. Look at this. We have not been here. We're pretty far from where we need to be. I don't know if this is considered cheating, but we know we need to go that way, but this view behind us is ridiculous. Why? We're now at over 48 minutes. I can't believe this. This is so embarrassing. We're about to get a phone call in 10 minutes to make sure we didn't die in here or something. I think this is the exit. We did it. Finally. Are you sure? Okay, yeah, exit. Oh my gosh. Alright, let's see. Our time was 50. Hold on. Stop. 52 minutes and 47 seconds. Not good at all, but we didn't get the phone call. Yeah, we didn't get the phone call. We escaped that. That was so freaking hard. I started to think I was going crazy in there. Make sure you bring a quarter or two because you can put it in the little machine to get some grain and you can feed the cute little cows and two little goats. Get your hand licked. We may have been a little bit too early for the peak colors here in Stowe, but it is just so beautiful driving around here. The colors are changing. There's mountain views everywhere and we're currently driving to our final fall adventure of the day, which may not be considered a fall adventure in many people's eyes, but back when we lived in the Pacific Northwest, we loved going to waterfalls in the fall. It was just a really good any weather type of activity. So we're driving to a spot called Moss Glen Falls, which is a 125 foot waterfall and is supposedly a pretty quick and easy walk to get to it. The trail is pretty flat and you walk through this kind of wetlands with the hills surrounding you and then you come upon this big steep hill and you climb up onto this bluff and you've got this beautiful multi-layered waterfall behind you. Well, look where we are again. Cold hollow cider mill and we're not here to eat more apple cider donuts, although we can't make any promises, but we're here because they're a harvest host, so we're sleeping here. I don't know if they make them this late in the day, but if they still have some in there, we're going to grab some because we got a carbo load for tomorrow because we are hiking to the highest point in Vermont, Mount Mansfield. We hit the peak fall combo. Apple cider donut, maple creamy. Oh yeah.