Laura and Lee's Excellent Autumn Adventure

We spent October 11-20 "leaf-peeping" in New England - mostly in the Cape Cod/Boston area, with a weekend trip to southern Vermont.

(If you're interested, here's the complete trip report, with all the details.)

We visited our long-time friends Walt and Barb, and forced them to go off and have fun with us.

We were fortunate to hit the "Foliage Season" at its peak in the coastal area, but even in Vermont, where it was just past the peak, the leaves were still gorgeous.

(Maple trees, Myles Standish State Forest)

We also spent a day at Old Sturbridge Village, a living museum which re-creates the daily work activities of an 1830s village in rural New England. We had been there before, but it's a fascinating place - especially if you take the time to talk to the villagers about what they are doing and why. You can really learn a lot of interesting things.

It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live then!

(Freeman Farm, Old Sturbridge Village)

On our trip to Vermont, we stopped for lunch at the Old Tavern Inn in Grafton, Vermont. We explored the area a bit, and found this covered bridge near the Grafton Village Cheese Co. And you can't go to Vermont and not go through a covered bridge! Lee thought that a picture looking out the window of the bridge would be striking.

We expected to see lots of cows in Vermont - we didn't see very many cows, but we kept seeing all of these white plastic-covered rolls everywhere... mostly in fields where we expected to see cows grazing. So we thought that maybe this is how people in Vermont store their cows for the winter...

And now one of the highlights of our trip...

Our stay at the Windham Hill Inn in West Townshend, VT. (They have a very fine web page, BTW.)

This is a lovely, peaceful place - everything the web page says about it is true - from the beautiful setting, to the friendly people, to the wonderful food.

The view from the windowseat in our room, La Bas.

Henry, the Inn's resident cat. After being away from our own cats for a week, it was nice to be around a cat again!

We took a nice hike in Jamaica State Park (I have no idea why there is a "Jamaica" in Vermont of all places).

We walked along an old railroad bed, in a corridor of trees that seemed to go on forever. Though the day was overcast, the golden leaves gave off a light of their own - perhaps giving back the glow of the summer sun.

We were reluctant to leave - but all good things must come to an end. Seeing the fall colors was quite an experience, especially when you grow up in Southern California, where not only do we not have seasons, but we don't have any trees, either. The colors are amazing and indescribable - and they were everywhere. I don't know if these pictures do it justice - but I tried.

And this concludes Laura and Lee's Excellent Autumn Adventure.

We leave you with one last look at the fall foliage... taken from a bridge in northwest Massachussetts.