Vermont

From Stowe, Vermont to Bar Harbor, Maine… Beautiful Scenery and a Scary Encounter

/ Curt Mekemson / 28 Comments
We left the crowded sidewalks and packed streets behind when we left Stowe, traveling the backroads of Vermont. You may have heard our sigh of relief as we once again had time to admire the scenery. Like this.
This old barn with its overgrown fields was part of it.
Rolled up hay bales were one more sign that Vermont had left summer behind and was preparing for winter.
There was still plenty of color to catch our eyes.
And a bright sun to illuminate the fields and trees.
A photo of cute baby possums adorned the wall of the Pine Grove Motel where we stayed in Barton, Vermont that night. As it should. We were in the Possum Room. The motel was ancient and small but remodeled and clean with amenities including a refrigerator, microwave and even a toaster. Two single beds served our sleeping needs. At least they did until midnight when we heard a strange noise. At first I thought in might be an animal in the attic and happily pictured a possum. Peggy and I quickly realized, however, that someone was using a key and trying to get into our room. My assumption was that he/she had mixed up room numbers. I’ve done that. I went over and politely said through the door that the person had the wrong room. (No way was I opening the door!) The person continued to work his key and wouldn’t quit. Maybe he was drunk. I was getting worried. “You have the wrong room,” I said loudly. “Go away!” He smashed the door with his fist. But left. It took a while for us to go back to sleep.
The next morning we climbed on I-91 and zipped down the freeway to I-93 where we left the Green Mountains of Vermont behind for the granite White Mountains of New Hampshire. There is a reason why New Hampsire is known as the Granite State!
Our goal was New Hampshire’s Kancamagus Highway noted for its fall colors. At 34 miles long, it is considered New Hampshire’s most scenic drive. The US Forest Service even charges people $5 to drive the road if they use any of the pullouts. (Our handy-dandy National Park Senior Citizen Pass that we have been using for a quarter of a century worked.)
Unfortunately, the famous fall colors were past their prime.
So we went looking for other things that might catch our eyes, like this boulder filled stream along the highway. More granite.
Farther along, we found a waterfall to admire.
Sunlight lit up a corner, creating translucence.
We thought that this ‘long shot’ provided an interesting, different perspective. The waterfall was at the very top. Dark, inky water ran along the channel and then gained a tad of color as it flowed over rocks at the end.
Of course we found some colors along the highway. After all, it was still early in October and we were in New Hampshire.
Birch trees were still showing off their yellow leaves and white bark.
And maples still provided a dash of red.
My favorite photo, however, was this picture that we took and I rendered in black and white.
Soon after we left the Kancamagus Highway, we entered Maine and once again found ourselves on backroads with close to zero traffic. GPS and I had an argument over which way to go. We were in Robert Frost country, however. He had spent the majority of his life in New England. My decision was easy: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I took the road less traveled by,” as I often do. It’s my motto. I had even memorized Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken, in high school. GPS was disgusted and kept telling us to turn around for miles.
We spent our night in Farmington, Maine where we had a large room with a kingsize bed, no one tried to get into our room, and there was an excellent Chinese restaurant about 50 yards from our doorstep. While most of the photos we took the next day on our way to Bar Harbor resembled the ones you have been seeing throughout this series, we were particularly impressed with the brownish tint of this scene…
And the reddish brown in this one.
Having time on our hands before we could check into our motel in Bar Harbor, we stopped at an information center in Bangor, Maine. These Black Eyed Susans greeted us.
A bee was busy harvesting the nectar.
When I got too close, it flew toward my lens. I liked the wing action. That’s it for today. Next up: Acadia National Park!
The colors of Acadia National Park.