We continued through the crazy beautiful autumn-in-New England landscape, but now we had a definite destination: Putnam, NY. (Ok, NY isn't New England if you're a stickler, but roll with me on this.) To get there though we had two more states to cross. It was time for the technicolor craziness of a leaf-peeping through New Hampshire & Vermont.
All told, we spent a day each in New Hampshire and Vermont (both magical in their own right . . . I don't want to slight them here!) before we crossed the river to NY.
Highlights included:
Mt. Washington and the cog railway to the top. This is the tallest peak in the eastern half of the US, and it's some of the harshest weather anywhere on the continent. We were fortunate to have spectacular weather for our trip to the top.
The pumpkin people of Jackson, NH. All the merchants in town participate and, well, the pictures speak for themselves.
Montpelier and the Mad River Byway. Maybe it was just the weather, but Vermont seemed to be the pinnacle of what New England colors could be.
Side note . . . I know we feel divided and angry as a nation, but we keep running into incredibly friendly and helpful people, even during peak tourist season in this area, someone always seems to want to chat with us. Maybe it's the amazing fall days that gets people in their best moods. Sometimes I think this is just what happens when you're with Joan. She has that kind of magic effect on people. :-)
Whether it's at a hair salon, a public park, or an auto parts store there is always someone willing to bend over backwards to do the thing we need before we can even ask them!
Of course we haven't asked any of these people about their politics, but maybe that's the point.
Mount Washington and the Cog Railway
We got to park for free in the parking lot at the base of Mt. Washington, so we decided to splurge and ride the cog railway to the top. It's incredibly steep and would have been a brutal hike up into possibly terrible weather, so the splurge seemed reasonable! The colors were amazing and we got to be twinsies with another van in the parking lot. :-)
Notice in that last picture. There's a chain that goes up and over the house. It's there because the wind can get so fierce and strong at the top of Mt. Washington that the house could get blown over!
The Pumpkin People of Jackson, NH
We stopped in 7-8 little towns on this part of the trip. Everywhere we went there was a healthy downtown with a "mercantile store", an inn or hotel, 2-3 decent places to eat, a park, a church and often a few craft shops or art galleries. Perhaps it's the tourism that so important to the area, but the towns seemed freshly painted and uniformly vibrant.
Nothing captured the energy and vitality of these towns like the Pumpkin people displays of Jackson, NH (Pop. 836). Jackson is NOT on the beaten path. It's maybe 15-20 miles off the famous Kancamagus highway (leaf peeping extravaganza) and about 4 miles from a paper mill. Yet, each business had its own display on which they must have spent hours and hours. I don't think we even captured them all here, but perhaps we got a majority. I'd guess this tiny, remote town had 15-20 businesses that seemed thriving in their downtown.
Vermont
It was really hard to take a bad picture in Vermont as well. What is it with these states that makes them like that? In the green mountain state we hit:
Montpelier, which is the smallest state capital town in the country (7,400)
Waterbury, home of Ben and Jerry's which was all booked up . . . BUT there was a terrific little hair salon that JUST HAD A CANCELLATION, so Joan finally got her hair cut.
The Mad River byway and all it's amazing color.
The town of Warren where we had a terrific lunch from a very overworked market owner (she's worked 21 days straight because there aren't enough staff she can hire.) and where they have a classically beautiful New England cemetery.
The Appalachian Gap distillery where we camped for the night and sampled the wares.
And of course, Middlebury college.
Thought for the day:
After Putnam we drove down the VT/NY border for a bit and ended up amazed by the differences between the two states. Even though only a few miles might separate two towns it always seemed like the New York town was much more depressed -- dilapidated buildings that needed paint, boarded up storefronts, few people on the streets, and fewer businesses downtown. You had to wonder:
"Why do some little towns do well and others seem to get stuck in such a nasty downward spiral?"
Maybe it's just the luck of the draw. I suppose this is really the $64,000 question, but I'd love to do some more reading on the topic.
Awesome! If you keep going south on Route 7, you'll run into Williamstown in the northwest corner of Massachusetts bordering New York and Vermont. Prettier than Middlebury College in the opinion of this Williams Eph!