I’ve often read “If you want to learn about yourself, TRAVEL!” But it seems the opposite is true for me. I learn most about myself when I am immobilized. Sitting stationary at my friend Deb’s beautiful lakeside cabin for a month spending mornings watching the waterfowl and evenings sitting on the dock listening for loons brought about a lot of introspection…a little glimpse of what my life would be like if I were to ever stop my perpetual motion. I must be honest in saying “it’s not pretty.” It didn’t take me long for deadly routines and addictive behaviors to being to show themselves in the form of bingewatching hours of TV. Within a week, I had memorized the evening lineup, from Wolf Blitzer in the Situation Room all the way to Late Night with Seth Meyers.
In the one month I spent at the cabin, I watched two Cat 5 hurricanes ravage my beloved BVIs. I watched wildfires wipe out entire sections of forests in the pristine PNW. I watched bodies being pulled from the rubble of a 7.1 magnitude earthquake in my beloved Mexico. And then, I watched people scramble for their lives in the worst mass shooting slaughter in memory. And I topped it off each night with 180 hours of real, palpable pain revisited from my childhood, glued to Ken Burn’s PBS Documentary on the Vietnam War. With each nightly episode, my mood got a little darker as I slid down the rabbit hole. Time to roll…
I hung out in Maine longer than I had anticipated, trying to wait out the fall foliage change. It was reported to be a particularly vibrant year due to all the rain this past summer. It was just getting started during my visit to the White Mountains. On my hut to hut hike in the Presidential Range, autumn was starting to tease with vibrant twinges of red and gold like accessories from the latest fall collection. So I decided to return to the cabin and wait another couple of weeks. As much as I flipped for Newfoundland, I don’t expect I will be back in New England for awhile, so I figured I may as well stick around for the fall show.
But time is running out, as I need to start my southerly migration soon. Meanwhile, news reports continue to say the foliage change is late this year….much later than usual. We should be approaching peak season along the Maine / New Hampshire state line about now, but only a few trees are starting to reveal a hint of their typical vibrant colors.
In leaving my friend Deb’s cabin after enjoying my own version of “Walden” for a month, I decide to make my southerly migration via the circuitous route up through Vermont. Surely, if there is going to be fall color, it will be Vermont! After all, the first image that comes to mind at the mere mention of the state is the splendor of autumn….the radiant reds, brilliant oranges, and dazzling golds of the sugar maples surrounding tall spires of New England churches, lining Main Streets of quaint, Norman Rockwell towns, brisk breezes billowing fallen leaves behind as I drive along scenic lanes.
So I head out via the “Kanc” as it is locally known, the Kancamagus Scenic Byway across the White Mountains National Forest. This 36 mile stretch of winding highway through eastern New Hampshire is known for its leaf peeping potential. From there, my plan is to head north through Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, then across to Montpelier and Stowe.
The early September drop in temperatures across Maine and Vermont got the color change off to a good start, bringing promise of a banner year. Foliage forecasters were hopeful that the cool, wet summer would produce spectacular October foliage.
But then the unimaginable happened….three straight record-breaking days of temperatures over 90 degrees! Instead of sipping hot apple cider and pulling out the sweaters, I find myself sweating more than the glass holding my ice water. Yep, in the northernmost corner of the US, just minutes from the Canadian border, we’re having an “unpresidented” heat wave. Complete Chlorophyl Climate Confusion! The bizarre weather patterns that had brought me blue skies and shorts weather atop Mt Washington, a summit otherwise known for the “worst weather in the world,” had also robbed autumn of its colorful cloak.
Fall foliage needs a special combination to put on a spectacular show; longer nights and classic fall weather…warm (not hot) sunny days and crisp, cool nights above freezing. When foliage begins to change, trees cease operations in their “food factories.” It’s that loss of chlorophyll that reveals the orange and gold pigments in the leaves. But while most of those pigments are present throughout the year, it takes the cooler weather to activate the further chemical changes, the production of red anthocyanin pigments. This traps sugars (i.e. in sugar maples) to give the brilliant orange, red, and purples of a quintessential autumn in New England.
Due to the heat wave, my fall foliage had been foiled! Or at least temporarily. Foliage forecasters used words like “fried” and “crispy” to describe the early turning leaves, now brown and fallen to the ground. What color change left on the trees was now muted tones….hills of green, dotted with a few dull browns and dusty oranges.
After reports of traffic jams in and out of Stowe and hour long waits before 11:00am at the microbrewery I planned to visit, Alchemist, I decide to forgo the obstacle course of Stowe, and instead turn south at Montpelier. However, all is not lost, as I pay a visit to nearby Waterbury’s most famous residents….Ben and Jerry. After all, nothing says “autumn” like an ice cream cone on a 90 degree day….in October…in Vermont.
Climate Change – It’s here!
Virtual hugs,
Judie
Well, I hope you get some fall color by the time you are completely out of New England! We’ve got some nice color going out here in the west right now…wish you were here!
We kept waiting and hoping on that Maine change too, but it was too darn hot! It’s been a crazy warm fall.
Nina
That’s funny about the Schweddy Balls flavor being discontinued due to being too risque. Would kids even have a clue as to what the name meant?
It’s sad that Ben and Jerry’s participated in the climate change march while the company itself is being environmentally irresponsible. Coincidentally I just recently read about it in this interesting article.
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/01/03/ben-jerry-pretends-to-protect-environment.aspx
Same climate confusion in East Texas! It’s still hot and muggy and the leaf color hasn’t changed at all yet, very unusual for late October.
After spending a month in the same location, we have a little peak into life after our wheels stopped rolling. And I don’t like it!!! We are so spoiled always having a different surrounding. What will we do in the same spot for months on end!!!! Ugh!
We have friends who just finished up a workcamping job in the White Mountains. Their fall colors have been spectacular. So fantastic that they’ve shared hundreds of photos!!!! Sorry you weren’t able to catch the fall foliage:(
Thanks for your well-informed and beautiful posts. What a strange season in some places this Autumn. Really enjoy your blog. Happy travels.
Pamela
Terry and I had an aha moment after reading your post Suzanne, as we have already fallen prey to binge watching some of the shows we refuse to watch with commercial interruptions. We vowed not to do this when we returned back to So. Cal but quickly fell back into old habits. Thankfully exercise has taken center stage and that is something we are not pushing aside for any less healthy habits. What a shame to be back east, feeling like there was going to be a ‘bumper crop’ of fall colors, only to have them stopped by the hotter temps. Thank goodness ice cream was near at hand.
Fall colors or not, those bridges are awesome!
Love those bridges. Great report from Ben and Jerry’s. We expected to see the fall color in Maine by mid September but got 90s instead. Had doc appts in Virginia so we couldn’t wait. Good thing, given what happened. We didn’t get to see the color in the Appalachians here either. Summer too dry, fall too hot, the leaves are just beginning to fall brown from the trees. Late fall here too. Actually it’s climate chaos! I’m plenty worried about what more is coming. We’re going to learn the hard way that”it’s not nice to fool with mother nature” I fear. We be plenty arrogant.
Weather here in NM is glorious! It was 46 this morning, 80 this afternoon. Tomorrow won’t be as warm, and gradually cooler all week.
This year has been a strange one in the north east. Walking around in short sleeves and shorts in February through this strange fall. Deede and I still cannot travel far so we did not have our moose hunt in northern NH and Maine. We enjoyed knowing that you were some place north of us, but we hoped that you were having fun. Ah well, at least you were able to have Mexico and Newfoundland in your year. Years ago, mid eighties, Deede’s father had come to visit us and since he lived in the north west and Alaska he was not familiar with our colorful transitions into winter. A hurricane had made his visit to MA boring so we all piled into our van and headed north to NH to show dad some color. Green gets boring after a while when one is seeking red, yellow, orange and various pastels, but green is all that we saw, way north of the White mountains where we gave up and headed south to home. We played “Look Dad, see that red tree in the middle of that mountain, now imagine it surrounded by more red and orange and yellow to the horizons. He went back home to Alaska the next day. At least you come away from your visit to the nor east with the knowledge that your days on the road are unfinished.
Peace,
Your experience with television watching may not be so unusual. We stopped watching network and cable TV some years ago. We get our news online (BBC, PBS, NPR, MSNBC) and entertainment from a Netflix subscription and DVDs from the library. It makes for a much calmer life.
Ditto with Deborah above…about this area in the northeast: I had the good fortune to spend a few weeks in Vermont 10 or so years ago when the leaves were at “peak” in autumn–and it was glorious. (Back before we were all forced to give thought to the chemical rape and destruction of our beautiful Earth). We traveled the same roads and enjoyed the same sights you brought to us in this post, so this was a lovey trip down memory lane. Thanks, as ever, for your sentiments and your images.