Foliage trip report - Weekend of Oct 9-11

[Rockwall Tim]

My wife and I flew to Boston last Thursday and stayed at the White House Inn in Wilmington that night. We knew we had two cloudy days ahead of us, but sometimes picture-taking is even better in those conditions.

We drove north to Weston to visit the Weston Village Store and the Vermont Country Store. Judging from the foliage in and around Weston, we knew (1) that this is an exceptional year for color, and (2) we had arrived during the peak for the central part of Vermont.

We followed Rte 100 a lot, occasionally taking a side road and trusting GPS to keep us from getting lost. One such road, Gilfeather Rd., was just outside Wardsboro, I think. The colors were so dramatic! The trees formed a canopy over the road and I told my wife, "If we had to leave right now, the trip would be a success!"

Spent the afternoon in the Strafford, Tunbridge, Chelsea area. Strafford was past peak, but visiting the Town Hall and the commons area is always a treat. Our luck ran out on the side road experiment. We took one that had great color...followed it for a time...and despite the fact that GPS said it had an outlet, it didn't. I did not relish the prospect of driving in reverse for 30 minutes...as we had no room to turn around and the road had deteriorated into a swamp. We prayed about it quickly, and suddenly got the space to turn around and retrace our path. So glad to get out of that tight spot!

Spent the night at the wonderful Fairbanks Inn in St. Johnsbury. The next morning, we headed immediately for Peacham and were not disappointed. The colors were eye-boggling. Then came the highlight of the trip. We drove west from the church, and took a right at the fork in the road. For the next 30 minutes or so, we were rendered speechless by the color along this dirt road. Plus, there was absolutely no traffic all the way to Rte. 2.

Went through Montpelier and headed to Warren and Roxbury. Spent the afternoon going back and forth across the various passes in Central Vermont. The sun finally appeared in the late afternoon on Saturday and we managed a few pix of sun-splashed foliage.

Drove to Rochester, NH for the night and flew back to Texas from Boston on Sunday. It was our sixth trip to "peep at leaves" and was the best of the six.

[4sneau]

I'm just another observer/Vermont lover here. I enjoy reading about everyone's plans for their trips on this forum, but even more, I love to hear about all of the wonderful experiences that people had while visiting Vermont. Thank you for posting yours. I was laughing (with empathy- been there/done that) at your story about the road that disappeared. So glad you had a good time! Again, thanks for posting a recap.

[Andy]

. . The next morning, we headed immediately for Peacham and were not disappointed. The colors were eye-boggling. Then came the highlight of the trip. We drove west from the church, and took a right at the fork in the road. For the next 30 minutes or so, we were rendered speechless by the color along this dirt road. Plus, there was absolutely no traffic all the way to Rte. 2.

Yep. That's the Mack Mountain Road. PWT turned me on to it my second trip to Peacham in 2006. If you have perused these forums over the years, you will see that it is one of his favorites. Now you know why