This is Autumn?

 Betty in Adams

In September Betty and her friend Elaine joined us as part of their visit from Australia.  They had just completed a trip across Canada via rail.  They arrived Sept. 23. and we travelled to Lancaster County, PA to tour Amish Country and the quilt shops.  Then it was back to Adams and then on to Freedom, NH .   We took the Conway Scenic Railroad through Crawford Notch to Fabyan and back.  It was a great trip.  Along the way we ate a leisurely dinner in the dining car  .The next day we travelled north to Coos County in an attempt to see moose.  No moose were seen, but the foliage was great. Saturday we went over to the Maine coast and then on to Durham, NH for a University of New Hampshire hockey game.  We stayed with our friends Dick and Katy Fralick over night before heading back to Adams.  Elaine flew out of Albany, NY on her way back to Australia.  Betty, Marion, and I went back to New Hampsire.  The women then went to a quilting weekend in Kennebunk, ME.  Betty departed on Oct. 21 for another week of visiting friends out west before heading home to Sydney, Australia. 

Sunrise over Cole Mt, Adams

The foliage this fall was beautiful in some areas and a dissapointment in others.  Northern New England was great particularly with the red maples showing vivid colors.  The sugar maples in the Berkshires were dull.  Many of the trees lost their leaves early.

October 26th early snow

On Oct. 26, we received one of the earliest snows since we have been in Adams.  It was only 1.5 inches.  The first killing freeze also occured that night with the temperature dropping to 18 degrees.  That weekend we headed to Durham for a weekend of hockey hearing the forcast for a major nor-easter snowstorm.

Sunday morning, Oct. 30, Durham, NH

We headed out to the Saturday night hockey game with snow starting to fall.  The game took longer than usual due to power problems with the game lights.  Other lights were fine.  They had to be started four times duriing the last intermission and period.  Upon leaving the game, about 3 inches had already fallen.  At 11:00 pm the power went out at the Fralick's and was out in the morning.  The picture above is at the Fraclick's that morning.  They received 6-8 inches of snow.  The snow was covering the rosebushes that were still in bloom.  We drove home through southern New Hampshire. The only problem was  getting gas.  Power was out along the way.  Finally we found a gas station with power and proceeded to wait in line.

Quilt shop in Wilmington, VT

We saw little damage along the way.  Apparently we were north of of the major snowstorm damage.  The quilt shop above was almost destroyed by the flood from tropical storm Irene in late August.  At that time the water level in the shop was almost 7 feet deep.  We visited the shop two weeks before the photo was taken.  At that time it had been open only one week.  The center of Wilmington received heavy damage from the August storm.  Many businesses are still closed.

Yard, the day after the storm.

We arrived home to find that we had 14 inches of snow the previous day.  Much had already settled and melted.  We had power.  The storm was classified as the worst natural disaster to ever hit the Commonweath of Massachustts.  Plainfield, two towns away had 29 + inches and many towns were well over 20 inches.  Connecticut was even worse off.  Power outages were everywhere.  It is now Thursday and as many as 500,000 are still out of power in the northeast.  The problem was the heavy snow fell when most of the trees were still full of foliage.  As of today, the snow is just about gone.