Roasted corn and fall foliage

Roasted corn for lunch! Yum, yum!

Donna Jo and Jack spend a peaceful moment looking at the reflection in the lake near Barnard.

No blue skies today.

Sometimes we have the best experiences when we have no idea where we are!

Still lost, but thoroughly enjoying the scenery!

Today was Columbus Day. It was partly cloudy and overcast, but still unseasonably warm for this area. We had a long day, driving south as far as Norwich, Woodstock, and Quechee. Local TV stations are reporting that the leaves are at “peak” and the colors are said to be the best they have been in the last few years. It is difficult to argue with their evaluation. How thankful we are to be here at this time!


When we drove through Smuggler’s Notch it was like swimming through a sea of yellow leaves. As we drove further we saw more of the red leaves, with orange and brown colors mixed in with the evergreen trees. Just out of Stowe we drove past the Trapp Family Lodge, established by the same Von Trapp family that was immortalized by the movie, “The Sound of Music”.


On to Quechee and a brief stop at an antique mall and then continuing on down the highway to a roadside farm stand called “Fool on the Hill”. There, on a huge open fire, they were roasting ears of corn. What could be better than eating ears of fresh hot corn while standing on a green hillside in the middle of peak foliage season in Vermont?!


For the remainder of the afternoon we drove on winding country roads in the Quechee area, getting lost a couple of times. Even when we had no idea where we were, we managed to discover beautiful scenery, which was the object of the drive in the first place. (Who cares if we got lost? We eventually "got found".) We passed a lovely lake in the village of Barnard and stopped often for photographs of locations so remote that they did not even show up on the road map.


To end our day’s drive we stopped at Dan and Whit’s store in Norwich. Dan and Whit’s is a sprawling old country store selling items of all descriptions. Their motto is, “If we don’t have it, you don’t need it”. There really is something for everyone there. This stop was, indeed, a truly cultural experience (of sorts).



As we began to lose our daylight we headed back to our spacious condo. Roasted corn and Dan and Whit’s in one day…what can we plan for tomorrow that could be better than that?