Foliage Run - 2020

I wanted to take some foliage pictures as the leaves change.  Pam and I decided to go on day trips instead of staying over somewhere due to Covid.

Foliage this year ended up being early due to drought conditions.  We didn’t think the leaves were quite as colorful this year.  We took a quick trip to see our new grandson.  The leaves had just started to turn so I took a couple pictures.

It was peak around Franconia, etc. which would have been nice to see but we didn’t want to deal with the traffic since we weren’t staying over.  It was a good call seeing the traffic congestion on the news at a standstill in that area.  The weather was a mixture of clouds and sun.  I think it was more clouds.  Sun hitting the colors on the trees make them really pop but clouds and grey sky make colors stand out in a different way. 

Our first destination was the Woodstock, VT area.  We decided to stay off the highway and take backroads Northwest to Claremont, cross over the bridge into Vermont and continue our Journey. 

We took nice winding roads with very little traffic.  As usual, we were looking for barns that could be nice pictures.  We were also looking for dirt roads to explore.

Many towns have old church buildings or town halls that were nice.  The frustrating thing I see often is telephone poles and powerlines all around them.  Nice buildings but the poles, transformers, wires, etc. don’t really do it for me.  I took a couple pictures anyway.  I suppose church buildings could be a new blog post for me.

As we traveled north, we saw the colors improve.  When we got to Woodstock it seemed like it was past peak a bit.  We had rain and high winds earlier in the week so some of the leaves were already on the ground. 

We went down several unmarked and class 4 roads.  At one point we had to have been 5 miles in the woods.  2 UTV’s approached so I pulled my jeep off the trail.  They stopped and I asked where this trail went.  They said it went to a big mud hole but didn’t come out to a road.  I was told there were more UTV’s coming and sure enough there had to have been 15 more pass by all mudded up.  Once they passed, we discussed and decided to be safe and turn around.  My though was no winch on my jeep, no one with us to help if we got stuck, no cell service, and a long trail walk back to anyone unless I run into the UTV’s again.  If Kevin was with us in one of his jeeps it would have been fun to continue.

From Woodstock, we would head through Barnard and did a slow loop.  We jumped on the highway heading home as it started to get dark.

Our second destination was west toward Spofford, NH.  We stayed off Rt101 going west so we could explore.  Again, nice winding roads, small towns, some good color, etc. 

We both enjoy exploring and the colors made it that much more enjoyable.