VT is Calling You for Foliage Season 2016 - Who is on board!?

[wentworth]

Hi there CTlady and fellow forum peeps,

We are planning our annual pilgrimage to Vermont (God's country) for either the last week of September or the first week of October. We have had visits where it rained 75% of the time which is no fun when you goal is sightseeing...One of the most colorful years was the last week in September 2014. I thought we hit it just right. With our drought situation, I am wondering what Mother Nature has in store for us this autumn. Any comments would be taken with a grain of salt but very appreciated!!! Also, we usually stay in Killington and do day trips from there. Any suggestions for a different area to plop down in? I wouldn't mind being closer to Polly's Pancakes even though (bite my tongue) it is in NH. Nothing makes me smile as much as a sunny autumn day having lunch at the Rochester Cafe especially if they are serving their to die for Corn Chowder soup. We are not big shoppers, so being near the outlets don't mean that much to us. I can't believe SOX closed up. Now that was my type of store.

I can't wait for the most beautiful time of the year! I am blessed to live in New England.

ahhhh yes, we were also there the last week of September in 2014, and I'd say we both timed it perfectly--Killington(we stayed at the Comfort Inn there on Killington Rd), NEK,RT 114, RT 232, Rt 100, Rt 4--what color that year!!--btw, courtmel, as you obviously know by now, there is no more drought, Vermont's been getting socked this month

[Utah Baker]

I brought down my fall décor last night. I hope I can wait until after Labor Day to jolt the neighborhood out of their summer complacency with foliage wreaths, mums and everything autumn!

Ahh, CT! I think this is why you will be endeared to me forever!

[ctyanky]

Hi Janice! What a sweet thing to say! Are you coming to VT this year??? You haven't said yay or nay! Every year my neighbor's burning bush turns red in late August and I pull some of the leaves off and put them on his doorstep or say to him, "Fall's just around the corner!". He gets so mad! Anyways, I haven't put anything up yet cuz it has been so hot it would look weird so when the next cold shot comes along (if it ever does) I may just put up my wreath!

[Utah Baker]

Don't know yet, still trying to work things out. Been trying to arrange a time all summer to go to Tenn. and spend some time with my son and his family. But his schedule with Med School had been hard to nail down. Talked to him Sun. and he thought the first two weeks of Oct. looked good, ugh! So we have been scheming on how to spend the first week in Vermont and the second in Tenn.! We'll see what happens.

[ctyanky]

Hi Janice: I hope your VT vacation works out for you. I'm sorry I missed you last fall when you met the gang! Maybe we can still plan on getting together if all goes as planned for your trip. I'll be in the NEK the whole first week of October with Carol (abby). Keep us posted!

[deaner1971]

Unfortunately, my work schedule is preventing me from being there at the same time as the rest of you.

As of now, my most likely arrival will be the 10th.

I was prepared to delegate some things and be there for the first week of October but, we are launching a new product and I need to be here.

Looking forward to Vermont but, even more, looking forward to getting my timing right, soon, and getting to meet you fine people.

[ctyanky]

Hey Dean: I can't believe I'll miss you again! You arrive when I leave! Maybe your plans will shift and you can get together with us......Anyways, glad you are coming to Vermont nonetheless!

[ctyanky]

mmvt: I can't wait to see you! I think that Carol was the one who set the date for our gathering at your house! It's Wednesday of the first week! Does that work for you? With photography shoots at Chittenden Reservoir and MAYBE, just maybe, we can do the Killington Gondola ride after not going up due to weather three years in a row! If no one wants to go, I'll go myself. I want to check it off my mountain lift rides once and for all. After that, I have one more to go out of the eight!

[wentworth]

Northeast Kingdom got creamed this evening with heavy rain--nice to see

[deaner1971]

CT,

I know! I doubt I will be able to escape earlier as the product is expected to launch on or about the 5th.

We are planning a family vacation for the first week of October next year so, I hope that I can meet up with everyone for a few hours one morning.

For this year, I am (as usual) wandering Southern Vermont so, I am hopeful that a few of the leaves still cling to the trees by then.

I have been so busy that I am not sure if I posted much at all of last year but, the foliage stayed nicely on the trees but, the weather was an issue. It always is so, perhaps it is best our travels do not overlap. See what I mean:

I left home at 9 PM, arrived at the Old First Church a bit before 6 AM the next morning. I was greeted by foreboding gray clouds that yielded nothing of use. As intermittent rain and clouds persisted, I tried to shoot the covered bridge on the green at Arlington. The clouds, as is their way when I am around, waited to part until the sun was well into the sky.

Deciding to make lemonade, I played Stratton's gorgeous golf course. 18 holes later, I changed back into hiking gear and drove north to Goshen and the Great Cliff. As I climbed toward the Great Cliff, the sky (AGAIN) grew ominous and opened up. Deciding that lightning and mountains are a bad combination and fearful of a nighttime descent on wet rocks in the dark, I abandoned the hike and headed back. I was now at 24 hours without sleep and decided, perhaps, a bit of sleep was in order.

I slept 8 hours and got up and headed out in the pre-dawn cold. I went to Ball Dam (under construction as it was being converted to hydroelectric) and moved on to the Scott Bridge on the West River. Both resulted in boring shots.

The sun now being high, my mistress called me and I was soon playing the links again.

Done with my 18 holes of golf, I drove to Hogback Mountain. With the sun still high, the shots were boring and I didn't love the view (nice on the eye but, perhaps, to an uncreative sort, less so through the lens) and I drove to Bennington. Or so I thought...

So worried about not being killed by traffic at the Hogsback Mountain shop, I went back the way I came and was surprised to see signs for Brattleboro. Upbraiding myself with numerous words, some four letters and most of the others derived from four letter words (if profanity was held in the same esteem as poetry, my grave should be as well visited as is Robert Frost's grave in Bennington), I turned around and promptly got stuck behind an overloaded and under-engined truck that was heading into the mountains. Fortunately, a kind man from Massachusetts tried to help me save gas by trying to see if he could get his bumper to touch mine and push me up the hill, ignoring that my speed was ruled more by the swaying jitney to my front than any law of man.

After I was able to stop (and exchanged some warm gestures and words of thanks with the gentleman from the Bay State), I checked my weather app. Seeing what appeared to be a weather report from the movie The Perfect Storm, I decided that the following day looked not at all good for additional adventures and a retreat was in order. Packing up my gear, I climbed back into the car and started to head home.

As the sun was setting and I had a moment, I stopped at the Old First Church to get a few more pictures in. The light was perfect. Not the light from the sky (though it was good too) but the light from the lighters of a family of human chimneys who, in an homage to Native American customs, brought tobacco offerings to the graveyard. As they endeavored to smoke most of a carton, I waited patiently at my camera as they stood at the corner of the church for twenty minutes (and as many cigarettes). As the last light left the sky, they decided that they had enjoyed enough of Vermont's clean and crisp air and they piled back into their vehicle and departed.

I walked over to, I assumed, clean up their butts only to find nothing on the ground. Ghost smokers? A new form of apparition known only to Vermont? Or, so fully engaged in their smoking had they eaten the filters so as to waste nothing? I will never know. But, I must give them credit as they may have sullied my images, they did not do so to the ground.

With that, I packed away my gear, turned around at the graveyard gates to see Vermont doning the gray shroud she had worn at my arrival just 36 hours earlier and I departed. As I crossed the border into New York, I wanted to cry. Perhaps for an opportunity squandered, perhaps for the putt I left hanging on the lip on the seventh green of the Mountain course or perhaps in realization that I was facing a 10 hour drive home and had only slept 8 hours out of the last 47. It is hard to say.

But, as the Walmart in Troy reminded me that I was no longer in Vermont, my mind turned to coming back in a year, "The Road Not Taken" came to mind and the scent of ghostly gas station cigarettes briefly wafted about.

"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:"

[From_the_NEK]

Northeast Kingdom got creamed this evening with heavy rain--nice to see

We really didn't need it (1.5+" north of St Johnsbury). All of which fell in less than an hour causing washouts.
The rest of New England really needs it.

[ctyanky]

NEK: you are correct. We are not getting any rain through Labor Day it seems now and CT and parts of MA are in a moderate drought. This is one of the driest summers I can remember. Yes, the weather is divine and vacationers lucked out most of the summer but we need rain badly. Not all at once like you mentioned but a few days of steady rain. Strangely though, the trees around here still look healthy, the rivers and lakes are quite down. Some places dried up.

[ctyanky]

Uh oh. I'm in trouble now. What time exactly do we have to leave Carol? I'll have to make sure I'm sleeping early the night before and we are not still wandering around in Victory Bog looking for my moose! What about my breakfast? Do we have time to stop along the way? At least for coffee? Yes, I want to do the gondola so I will forego my "beauty sleep" as you call it for one day. This will be one for the record books. Andy and Al would be shocked!

Is Wednesday ok for you MMVT?

[Andy]

Wow Carol. You must really have some "dirt" on her

She would NEVER get up for us.

[ctyanky]

Well hello Andy: in response to your comment that I would NEVER get up for you, it was either extend my beauty sleep or catch the Killington gondola this time around. I only have two lift rides left on my bucket list in Vermont!!!! (out of 8 mind you).

Beauty sleep..... gondola..... beauty sleep ......gondola......

And yes, Carol has all the "dirt" on me. She blackmailed me on this one!

But if you share your secrets, I'll share mine. So next time you are in Vermont, you can blackmail me to get on those pre-dawn photoshoots of yours and let me go shopping en route!

Really, I wish you were joining us this season. You're so much fun.