A Few Foliage Pics

Here are a few pics from our drive up to the mountains today.

This spot is a scenic pull off on Bear Notch Road.

These are from a pull off near Crawford Notch, as clearly denoted by the sign.

Here are a bunch from the Willey House in Crawford Notch.

The polarizing filter in action, first:

Second:

Shutter at 1/80th of a second:

Shutter at 0.8 seconds:

A few from outside the Mount Washington Hotel.

My favorite stop of the day, The Balsams Resort in Dixville Notch.

I should probably crop out the street sign.

Leaf Peeping

I guess we will go leaf peeping today.

Lots of pictures, most look like trash, but one or two might be okay.

I have my D90, my Coolpix, and my iPhone. I dropped the Coolpix but I think it’s okay. I’m leaning toward my iPhone for random rest stop/gas station stuff. The leaf peeping is all D90 though.

Isn’t this fascinating?

The Scenic Route

We drove up to Vermont to have lunch with the kids. We left ridiculously early so that we could take the scenic route. We left the highway at the Vermont line and went back roads the rest of the way. We stopped at Quechee Gorge and a couple of random spots. There aren’t a lot of pictures but here are a few.

I was afraid we were going to be stuck behind this guy for hours. He was going 29 in a 50.

We stopped at this field to stretch our legs. I liked the view. The next door neighbor was a Jehovah’s Witness building. Oddly we found two Jehovah’s Witness places today.

Harry likes Stok Cold Brew coffee. I’ve never seen it like this before, but I really haven’t been paying attention.

The reason for the trip. The college crowd.

I thought this looked cool. Sorry.

Farm Animal Bingo

On our drive to Vermont we have stuck mostly to the scenic route. Our farm animal bingo card includes cows, sheep, horses, and alpacas.

All we need are Moose and awkward turtles.*

*In joke, sorry.

Quechee

We did what I always want to do but never do when driving up to Vermont. We stopped at Quechee Gorge!

I had a tough time dealing with the exposure settings on the DSLR. A lot of my shots look super under exposed. I switched to auto and those looked dark too. I guess it was the light conditions and not just me. Nice!

Scenes from a Road Trip Part Three

Random moments from stops on the road yesterday.

What’s the deal with whale tails in Vermont?

This might be the cover for my next album, which will be called “awkward turtles have weird babies:

I Am Toast

Methuen, MA to Burlington, VT to Methuen, MA to Burlington, VT to Methuen, MA in a period of about a day and a half. Sweet Christmas, am I exhausted.

Everything went fine on the second trip to school yesterday. No issues at all. I helped bring a few things up to Harry’s room and helped bring a few things back to the car. I stopped at a few random places in order to stretch my legs and all was well. I left the house at about 3:45 and got back at about 10:45. Pretty much exactly on schedule.

About 10 minutes after I got home I zombified completely. I had a few things I needed to do before bed and I did them all, but once that was through I was mentally and physically done. I put out the Poland Springs empties so that they could be picked up today. I brought the trash out to the street so it could be picked up today. I finished my exercise and move rings so that I could keep my perfect month intact.

Note, I said I closed the rings. I did not say I did a full 30 minutes of walkies. Nope, I was too tired. I broke my streak of days with a single 30 minute work out. I did 18 minutes last night and that was enough for me to have all three of my Activity App rings closed and that was all I had in me. The streak ran from June 1, 2022 to August 28, 2022. I started a new streak this morning. Bring it on.

Okay. I have to go to work. I have a busy morning. My goal is to get through the work day, cook some dinner for the love of my life, and then fall asleep in front of the TV until bed time. Bring it on.

Stretching My Legs

Welcome to New Hampshire. I just crossed the state line coming out of Vermont. I still have about 100 miles to go but I pulled over to give my legs a good stretching. I’m in a Walgreens parking lot and the store is closed. That didn’t compute for me until I looked at my watch and saw it was 9:10pm. Oh, yeah. Closing time.

Okay, time to get back on the road. I need to get home with enough time to do my 30 minutes of walkies. Yikes!

One Hour Along

One hour into the return trip to Vermont. Somewhere near New London, NH.

Time for some Calcium supplements and maybe some Tylenol. You look overwhelmed with excitement.

Heh heh heh

Heading Back?

We drove up to Burlington yesterday, had brunch with Bellana (which was wonderful), then dropped a few things off at Harry’s new dorm room and helped him set a few things up. That was great too.

After we were done helping Harry we headed North, which is 100% in the wrong direction. We wanted to make the ride home a sight seeing thing. We drove across the islands in the middle of Lake Champlain. The lake looked amazing. We did get stuck behind a draw bridge for a while, and we also got stuck at a rail road crossing. There was no train. The gates came down and traffic in both directions stopped. It was weird until an ambulance drove up, the gates came up so the ambulance could cross, and they didn’t come back down. There really was no train. Did the ambulance trigger the gates?

Eventually we ran out of islands and just headed South. We left the highway for traffic reasons a couple of times and didn’t get home until after 8:00pm. It felt so good to just get out of the house and road trip like a couple of road tripping road trippers again. I really enjoyed the whole thing. I especially enjoyed the kid time and the Jen time, but the whole thing was great.

……and now we are going to do it again today?

Jen is at a doctors appointment. She’s texting with Harry about some additional things he needs us to bring up to him. I have a half day today for a doctors appointment at 2:00pm. Since I’m already leaving work early, I can just head up to Burlington again and take care of things. Why wait until the weekend? Jen and I are texting about planning things. I’m not clear on whether or not she will come up with me. I’m 100% committed to this today. The only question remaining is will I be able to stop at Quechee Gorge on the way home.

Road Trip Take Two, babie! WOOHOO!