New England fall weekend

This was Columbus Day weekend in the United States. This is traditionally a weekend when the roads here are swamped with out-of-staters driving slowly 'leaf peeping'. As the weather was just stunningly gorgeous, with not a cloud in the sky and temperatures reaching the 70's we decided the heck with petrol prices - we'd head out in the car in search of fall foliage to photograph too! Although a lot of the colours seemed very muddy, and we didn't think the colour was necessarily at its peak, there were still some beautiful sights.


What's for sale? Not the lone pumpkin, or even the house! It's the dead corn stalks! Yes, really! I don't know what it is about dead cornstalks, but Americans (around here at least) like to decorate their porches and mailboxes with them in the fall.



We drove past the insanity that is Yankee Candle ("the scenter of the Universe"!) beginning in the fall all the way through to the New Year. You'd think they didn't sell candles in New York and New Jersey. Parking two deep on the grass! I don't need candles that badly! Nor do I need to visit their version of "Old World Europe where fairytale dreams come to life and every day is Christmas." Yuck! I suppose for many Americans it's very original and 'cute', but we moved on to some authentic New England scenery just a few miles down the road.


That's a real live (and very noisy) chicken in the front yard of this house!


A hitching post with burning bush.


Small town New England celebrating with a 'Fall Festival'. Games for the kids, lots of things to eat (fried dough with maple cream - yumm!), crafts being sold, music and dance performances (we missed the Morris dancers though - would have liked to see them), and lots of money being generated for local causes like Boy Scouts.


Every now and then a balloon escaped . . .


Despite the general muddiness (to my mind) of the colours, there were still some stunning trees!