Home Again

We are back home. We did the annual leaf peeping drive. Success. It was a little past peak everywhere we went, except for around the lakes region. It still looked pretty fantastic though.

We didn’t pull over very much so there aren’t a lot of pictures. We did stop for gas and bathrooms a couple of times, and one stop was at The Willey House on route 302. I have a few pics from there, both film and digital.

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It was a nice drive. I enjoyed spending the day with my wife, the love of my life. Any time we can just be together is a thrill for me and time very well spent.

Head for the Mountains

I didn’t think we were going to try to do any leaf peeping this year, but after talking to Jen a few minutes ago I think we are going to head North and try to do some leaf peeping tomorrow.

I just put the digital camera’s battery on the charger. One of the film cameras is loaded with a roll of black and white film. That won’t do. I need to put some color film into the other camera and then maybe take them both. Two films and a digital make three cameras. Yeah, that works for me.

Chances are we won’t stop anywhere and all of our peeping will be from inside the moving car, but that doesn’t matter. Turning a day trip like this into a photo-trip is nice and all but the real point of it is to just spend some time with the love of my life. That’s the real treat.

Past Peak?

My question for the universe…

And by universe I mean one tiny sliver of New Hampshire:

How’s the foliage situation in the White Mountains of New Hampshire today? Is it too far past peak to make the drive up tomorrow?

We didn’t go last week because we heard the crowds and the traffic were beyond unbelievable, but this week is probably too late… so should we go or not? That is the question that troubles my soul this morning…

And by troubles my soul I really mean that it doesn’t trouble my soul at all, I’m just curious and overly dramatic at 6:26am on a Friday morning.

Too Early

What day is it? Who knows. It’s Thursday, right?

Is it too early to start thinking about plans for the weekend? It is the height of leaf peeping season here in New England. We thought about going up to the mountains for a look last weekend but we decided against it. If we go this weekend the traffic will be insane. I checked the weather for our area and Saturday looks great while Sunday looks rainy and crappy.

I don’t know. We’re trying to plan a visit to the kids but that won’t be for another couple of weeks. We have a couple of work days to get through before we figure anything out and maybe we will just hang out at home. I don’t know. After a bunch of day trips on our week off/staycation last month I just have the road trippin’ bug.

We will figure it all out soon enough. Stay tuned.

Leaf Peeping

The weather forecast was kinda crummy today but the reality isn’t too terrible. Jen and I are going to give leaf peeping a shot. That will let us go out in the world while still being paranoid about spreading any last vestiges of the Covid… even though that is literally not a thing.

I have my Nikons in the camera bag. The Z5 mirrorless with the new 28mm lens, and the FG-20 film camera with the 35-70mm zoom. I even turned on the SnapBridge app connection so that I can possibly post Z5 shots to the blog while we’re out. There was only one shot on the memory card and it crossed to my phone and it’s Robin, of course.

Lets see how it goes today. Fingers crossed for some cool views and decent shots.

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.

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

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

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The polarizing filter in action, first:

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Second:

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Shutter at 1/80th of a second:

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Shutter at 0.8 seconds:

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A few from outside the Mount Washington Hotel.

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

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I should probably crop out the street sign.

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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?

Monster!

I had to step outside today to take out the trash and I saw this hideous monster. How can we live in a world where an evil like this exists?

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Also, you’d think that living in the woods in New England would mean we’d have some cool fall colors. Not really. In our back yard the leaves go from green to ugly yellow to dead on the ground. Oh well.

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Jen and I talked about going leaf peeping up on the Kanc this weekend. It’s probably a smidgen too early, but it will be a fun day if we go.