For many of us this year, a fall foliage tour will end up being an armchair virtual tour, due to social distancing and avoidance of crowds. Digital Journal has put together a short pictorial tour of autumn in the United States, so grab a mug of hot apple cider and sit back and enjoy. The Autumn Quotes are from Good Reads.
Regardless of which state you might live in, there are always one or more areas that are considered lovely drives if you live near one of them. A good example is Door County Wisconsin. This county offers some incredible foliage with Lake Michigan as an occasional backdrop.
“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
― L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
There is a stretch of highway in the western part of the country called the “Million Dollar Highway.” This roadway runs from Silverton to Ouray, Colorado, and is one of the roads on the Trails of the Ancients Byway.
There are several legends on how the highway got its name, including that it cost a million dollars a mile to build in the 1920s, and that its fill dirt contains a million dollars in gold ore. In the early 1920s, what had been a toll road built in 1883, was rebuilt at considerable cost and became the present-day US 550. The Million Dollar Highway was completed in 1924.
“I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house.”
[Notebook, Oct. 10, 1842]”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The American Notebooks
The Appalachian Trail is the most famous backpacking trail in the eastern United States. It runs through Pennsylvania for 229.6 miles. The trail enters Pennsylvania from Maryland south of Harrisburg and leaves northeast of Allentown into New Jersey.
One very popular day hike is a moderate, 3.2-mile hike to Wolf Rocks, very near Wind Gap and Stroudsburg, in Monroe County Pennsylvania. Wolf Rocks form a narrow, north-facing ledge of boulders deposited during the last ice age. The ledge commands a fine view of Pleasant Valley and the Pocono Plateau escarpment.
“He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Old Sturbridge Village is a living history museum located in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. The museum recreates life in rural New England during the 1790s through the 1830s.
There are more than 40 structures, including restored buildings purchased and relocated from around New England, as well as some authentic reconstructions, and the entire village is divided into three main sections. The village’s peaceful nature is evident, and the surrounding countryside is beautiful in the fall.
“The tints of autumn…a mighty flower garden blossoming under the spell of the enchanter, frost.”
― John Greenleaf Whittier
Fall is also a time when we show off the fruits of the harvest season with a fall festival. From arts and crafts to pumpkins and apples – it is a wonderful time for everyone in the community to get together and enjoy delicious foods and good conversations with friends and neighbors.
One Fall festival – held in Newbern, Virginia is the only fundraiser the Newbern Volunteer Fire Department has every year. However, due to the uncertainties surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and the safety and well-being of the community, this year’s event was canceled.
“The goldenrod is yellow,
The corn is turning brown…
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.”
― Helen Hunt Jackson
Some of the most incredible autumn colors I believe I have ever seen can be found in the Northeastern part of the United States. The change in the colors of the leaves begins in far Northern New England in northern Maine and the higher elevations of Vermont and New Hampshire in mid-September.
Then, the color change begins reaching into central New England areas of southern Vermont, southern New Hampshire, and Massachusetts by early October. By mid-October, the color peak reaches northern Rhode Island and northern Connecticut. The whole process only takes a month, but it is fascinating to watch as the colors spread, like multi-hued paint spilling down a canvas.
“Autumn that year painted the countryside in vivid shades of scarlet, saffron and russet, and the days were clear and crisp under harvest skies.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, Time and Chance
