Autumn’s Here

I spent my mid-teen years (i.e., high school) growing up in Vermont. I still have family there as well as many friends I’ve stayed in touch with over the years.

With the arrival of autumn a couple of days ago, I’m starting to see plenty of pictures from all of them about the leaves starting to turn. The days are getting short, the nights long, the air crisp as winter approaches, and Mother Nature’s fireworks show is starting to fire off.

I know that lots of parts of the world have fall foliage to see, but nothing’s like Vermont. Seriously. If you ever have a chance to get up there during the fall foliage season, take it!

The next few days should see the peak color in northern Vermont, up by the Canadian border and along Lake Champlain. The next ten days to three weeks will be the peak color areas moving southward, so by Halloween most of the state will be past peak and the colors will be getting vivid in the mid-Atlantic states and the southern Appalachian Mountains.

So go to Vermont this weekend! Take a camera.

These pictures are from the last time I was there in the autumn, in 2006.

Flying into Burlington from Boston, along the shores of Lake Champlain.

On short final to Burlington, the color is really beginning to show.

Stowe.

Stowe, at the Ben & Jerry’s factory.

Barre.

Near the summit of Mount Ascutney.

A birch grove near the summit of Mount Ascutney.

From the observation tower on the top of Mount Ascutney, looking west.

From the observation tower at the top of Mount Ascutney, looking north.

From the observation tower at the top of Mount Ascutney, looking east. In the valley running left to right along the bottom of the picture is the Connecticut River. Everything beyond it is New Hampshire.

On the road down from the Mount Ascutney summit.

Bellows Falls.