Autumm – Valerie's Voice

Vermont In October

"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers." 

A quote by Anne Shirley in L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables.

We wanted to plan a trip to visit friends in Vermont. We chose to go in October, to hopefully see the fall colors that the New England states are known for…and we did. It was peak!

A view from the airplane. We knew we were going to see color!

The forecast before we left was rain. We had one afternoon of misty rain, and the rest of the time it was sunny!

We took a day to drive a few mountain gaps in the Green Mountains before heading to our friend’s house. We were enjoying the drive, seeing a carpet of color all around us when we came upon a ski resort offering a chairlift ride to the top of the mountain.

As we were thinking about it, I talked to a friendly guy close by and he said, “now you are seeing the beauty, but on the chairlift you are in the beauty.” I liked that description, so we bought our tickets and up we went.

Reds, oranges, yellows, greens, maroons, golds, brown…o my.

It was a great 20-minute ride up. At the top we looked around, and then got in line to go down the mountain.

From the top….Mad River Glen Ski Resort.

As we approached the platform to get on a chair to take us down, the whole operation stopped. Something had gone wrong and they needed to fix it! Fortunately, we were only stranded on top of the mountain for about ½ hour…

Being surrounded by color, having sunny weather and spending quality time with our dear friends made our October trip to Vermont delightful, and I agree with Anne…I’m so glad I live in a world with Octobers.

Captivating Colors

Random photos of autumn colors.

The entrance to St. Olaf College, off Hwy. 19, usually has the best color in town. 10/17/25

And St. Olaf has the best potted plants…

And the best mum gardens too (at St. Olaf).

I love it when the trees have multi colors…

New to me this year…I saw this very large (probably 10 ft diameter), happy, inflatable pumpkin.

Heath Creek Trail., in Northfield. 10/17/25

Very few wildflowers in bloom…this hairy aster is a hold out.

A friendly ghost and large, inflatable black cat. Fun holiday decorations.

Bright red-oranges and yellows…down our street. 10/20/25

Evening glow over downtown Northfield. 10/20/25

Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad;
    let the sea resound, and all that is in it.
Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them;
    let all the trees of the forest sing for joy.
Psalm 96: 11-12

An Extended Fall

We’re back on our son’s front porch in North Carolina. The temperatures are mild, and it’s wonderful drinking our morning coffee out here. Yesterday, a long, gentle rain fell, but we could still sit on the porch and watch the rain fall, and it was lovely.

The woods next door offers a beautiful view of fall colors. We get to experience an extended fall season.

This morning’s show included an occasional leaf gently floating down and many active birds…the ones I could identify were finches, eastern blue birds and a woodpecker. The cardinal is the state bird of North Carolina, and I’ve seen many already, just not this morning.

All is well.

The North Shore 2022

Our trip to the north shore proved to be a lot more colorful than we were expecting.

We had already started seeing pockets of beautiful fall colors on our drive up, so I started to get a little excited…and then the colors began to pop out everywhere…with wonderful contrasts to the evergreen trees.

The weather also turned out better than I had hoped for, with warmer temperatures and some nice sunshine and blue skies (and one cloudy day). We had packed clothes for colder weather.

Looking inland from the Tofte overlook, on a spur trial off the Carlton Peak trail. (1)

Looking inland from the Tofte overlook, on a spur trial off the Carlton Peak trail. (2)

We followed our annual routine of balancing cabin time and lake time with hiking and local drives.

We watched the sun rise over the big lake and had a camp fire on the rocks. We stopped in Hinckley and Duluth on the way up, and stopped in Grand Marais one day. It’s all so familiar, yet all so refreshing, relaxing, and restorative… and so much fun!

A leaf-covered hiking trail through the forest.

The colors were breathtaking…everywhere we went. It was spectacular to see and hard to photograph with my iPhone.

But it was enough to witness the colors and breath in the fresh air, smell the different whiffs of pine scents, lake water, decomposing leaves, feel the crisp air and to “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8a).

I stand in awe of the Creator of these incredible autumn colors.

And the colors were not only up north…we saw them driving home, and right here in Northfield, and outside our front and back doors!