The New England Autumn

One of our major goals for this trip was to experience the New England fall colors. As we were leaving Canada we started looking at the online foliage reports. Because it seemed to be too early, we first headed down to the Boston area and further south, but kept watching foliage reports. By late September, things looked like the fall color was starting to develop, so we headed up to the White Mountains in New Hampshire. Though the weather was mostly overcast and damp, we were still able see the trees near their peak color. For somebody from Southern California, this was a most amazing spectacle.

One of our stops was the voting room at Dixville Notch. The small village of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, holds the distinction of always providing the first voting return in national elections. The entire voting population gathers in this room at the Balsams Hotel the night before election day. Just after midnight, they all vote, close the polls, count the votes and submit their election results.

While we were in the area, we had to make the drive to the top of Mount Washington, even though we were warned it was not clear on top. On April 12, 1934, the observatory atop Mount Washington recorded a wind speed of 231 MPH! This record still stands as the highest recorded surface wind speed anywhere. The building in the above, left picture actually has large chains over the top over the building to insure it is held down. Besides the toll road that we drove, there is also a cog railway that provides excursions up and down the mountain.

Just a little more fall color from New Hampshire.

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After a few days in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, we headed over to the area around the village of Stowe in northern Vermont.

A very pretty highway travels north from Stowe and crosses over a narrow mountain pass called Smuggler's Notch. Smuggler's Notch was used to smuggle English goods from Canada after the American Revolution. It was also used during Prohibition to smuggle alcohol from Canada.

The area around Stowe is extremely picturesque. The area is also popular for downhill sking in the wintertime.

We'd really like to visit this area again when the skies are clear!