) and got to Chester for the fall foliage festival just after 10. It was really packed with more booths this year, but it was HOT. We didn't stay too long and I wanted to show my friend a lot of places that he had never seen before so we took the infamous Popple Dungeon Road out of Chester by taking the Grafton Road south. Popple Dungeon is a long paved, then dirt road that runs east and west until it hits route 11 again. It is quite an interesting road as it starts out with a lot of local crafters personal homes and then becomes quite rural. There is one road called Nudist Camp Road but no, we didn't check it out! 
The road followed a meandering stream and it was quite peaceful. We got to Peru and had a scrumptious lunch at JJHapgood General Store. Love that place! Worth a stop. We ended up at Bromley because I wanted to check out the zip lines for fall and we ended up taking the chair lift to the summit. It was an amazing experience to be at the top with 360 views of so many ski mountains in the distance! We even saw Mt. Washington! Such a clear day with a few puffy clouds. It was pretty WARM at the summit with no breeze so we canceled the hiking plan!Here is what I saw in terms of color thus far. It was about 8-10% early change throughout our entire trip, not random, but very uniform. As the elevation changed, so did the amount of lighter colors in the trees. No where did we see the real fall colors of reds and oranges, except for a minimal amount of swamp maples here and there. I didn't even expect to see this much of a transition but the trees are incredibly healthy, lush and full and we saw no leaf drop.
From Bromley, we headed to Manchester by way of 11 and 30 and headed up to Dorset. Much more green here and hot. The Dorset Quarry was hopping and there were throngs of swimmers and sun bathers. I've only been there in winter and fall so this was a sight to behold! It is so amazing there! Continuing on ahead, we just missed the Dorset Farmer's Market, my favorite one in the state. So we toured the tiny village of Dorset and my friend loved the town green and the gorgeous colonial homes circumventing the green and the Dorset General Store with a picture perfect autumn display complete with pumpkins and guords!
Time to head back to Connecticut, I was beginning to fade...... We took route 7A to route 8 to 9 east. The most change I saw all day was in Woodford!!! Things are really moving along faster there. I also thought route 8, as far as we went, was simply beautiful and will keep this in mind for future road trips in the fall. Somewhere along the line, we ended up on route 100 for awhile into Whitingham but I was starting to run out of energy and closed my eyes for a bit. So many roads and route numbers, I'm actually not sure I got them all in order, but you get the "picture".
It was a very warm day, mostly used the AC and it really felt like the middle of summer except for all the autumn decor and displays out now! It was also fun riding around in a huge pickup truck!
I loved being up there today despite the warm weather. Beauty everywhere and got my "Pre Autumn Vermont Bliss State of Mind" in full throttle! CT