new england

What do you do with an extra hour? Save it? Ignore it? Sleep it away?

We’re in Woodstock, Vermont. I look at my travel clock and mentally push it forward, because I’m out east, then push it back, because of the time change. So it is as I had it two days ago.

It’s early. Before sunrise. A good time to go out hiking, no? To watch the sun come up over the mountains, see the village wake up…

I set out.

How did it get so cold so quickly?

There’s a small mountain behind the b&b. I think the Rockefellers bought it and donated it to the National Forest Service. Surely there must be a path up to the top?

There is. As I climb, the sun pushes up over the mountain crest. Good morning, sun. It climbs, I climb. We are in step with each other.



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At the summit of my small mountain, I am handed a view. Hoarfrost has spread over the valley.


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And now I want to share it. Why didn’t I wake my daughter for this? I turn around and prance down. But not so quickly as to miss these:



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Yesterday, at a local shop, the seller told me that there were few deer around these years. Really? Do I have a scent that attracts deer? I see them all the time outside Madison. I saw them on the Civil War battlefields of Virginia. And now here, on the small mountain behind my Vermont inn.

And they’re not easily spooked. I inch closer with my camera. They look up, listen to the click of my Sony and go back to grazing. Until finally one takes flight…



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… and the other eventually follows.. Looking back one more time, to see if my camera will again make that clicky sound. It does.



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And now the forest is quiet again.



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At the b&b, our British hosts serve us porridge, and eggs with roasted tomatoes.











Why are they here, in Woodstock, running an inn?
We were both in book publishing in London and several years ago, we decided to try something new.

(This is the b&b on the outside, but it’s the whimsy, the satire inside that makes it so completely charming as to place it among the beloved.)





Book publishing, book writing, inn keeping – why the overlap? In Brooklyn, our b&b hosts were also book and media people.

Should I open an inn? Where? (A purely hypothetical question. No resources to spiff up anything anywhere.)

My daughter and I set out up the mountain. No deer now, in the bright sun of daylight. But it's still so pretty!



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And now it’s time to head back. The car is due by 2:25, or else I’ll be charged another day for it. We barely make it.


In Cambridge, I walk to the grocery store. The distant one. I take the long way, by the Charles River. A man sits on the bridge looking sort of lonely up there.



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I’m really feeling the cold air now. On the way back, the branches of basil in my bag wilt in the frost. I know, it’s to be expected. It’s November.

Tomorrow I head back home. Where the deer and the antelope play… More like deer and prairie dogs.

new england

Leaving Cambridge (MA) this week-end means saying so long to the colors of ivy and maple.



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Going north. I'm looking good and hard at this part of the country. I remember it. My first American winter escapes. I have plenty of childhood memories of New England. It's a mixed bag. I'm more than happy to make substitutions and changes so that my final take on this places comes off as a positive.




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As we cross from Massachusetts to New Hampshire to Vermont, we lose the leaves. The air gets colder too. We stop for a cup of coffee and comment on the chill. They’re making snow at nearby Killington tonight.

Killington. I skied there thirty five years ago! I remember the week-end: I briefly contemplated downhill racing then (my ambitions were often out of line with my skills). I was fast! And afterwards, I kissed a man with complete infatuation and abandon. Even though we never really exchanged more than a dozen words. He was from Canada, I was from New York and I never saw him again after. We truly had nothing in common.


My daughter and I pass the village of Quechee, Vermont. We’ll be back here for dinner. Right here, in this room hanging over the river and the dam. Right next to the covered bridge.



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The sun is pretty much done with the day by the time we get to Woodstock, our place for the night.



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That’s okay. We’re tired from the drive. We stop at the Woodstocker, an inn just off the road.



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It’s a good time to be here. Off season. The stars outside are just as dense now. More so, I should think.

I pick up a bottle of Vermont wine for later at the butcher’s. Vermont wine. With a cow on the label. Weird confluence of symbols, no? Life’s funny.

from New England: color capers

How brilliantly clear! How astonishingly gorgeous! How embarrassing.

No, nothing left.
But, I booked on line and was approved for the smallest size!
We don’t know how it happened, but all we have left for you is the very largest. We’ll give it to you for the same price, of course.
But how will I look driving a Lincoln Town House luxury sedan? In white?
Wave to people. Be proud.
But the gas!
We’ll knock off $20 for the guzzling you’ll do.
But I wont be able to squeeze into tight parking spots!
Where are you heading?
Vermont...

What are you gonna do.

The car takes control. A mind of its own, wired in ways that I do not understand.

We head north west, in search of New England autumn foliage.

Massachusetts is still mostly green. It’s been a warm season. Still, the air is so astonishingly crisp that you needn’t fret about colors. It’s autumn alright.

We cross the Connecticut River…





The road weaves through villages that are hardly tourist draws. They’re just small towns, looking simple and lived-in. In one such place, we drive past a sign that causes us to swing (I use this term generously; one does not “swing” in a Lincoln Town House luxury sedan) around and take another look.

Scribbled on a board: Boston Globe says we have the best Polish food this side of Krakow.





They don’t know who they’re dealing with. I know pierogi. My grandma made fantastic pierogi and I’m not easily fooled by doughy tasteless imitations. We park our white tank and step up to the trailer/diner/best-Polish-food-eatery and order a plateful.

Here, take a look: a diminished portion (the mouth was faster than the camera).





I tell proprietors: best pierogi EVER. (Except for my grandma’s, but then, she’s deceased.)

Next time, try the kapusta! (cabbage stew)





We continue north. Vermont now. And the colors begin to emerge.





We pass maple syrup shacks and general stores and so many white clapboard church spires that you almost want to yawn but for their loveliness. Eventually, we leave the white tank and stroll up and down a main street of a small town in south central Vermont. A café is open and the proprietors have just baked a batch of apple turnovers. We buy one in addition to the maple twist already before us and we munch on these in the late minutes of a perfect afternoon.





It’s time to head back. One more look at the Vermont hills from the ridge of Hogback Mountain and the patches of sunlight moving from one summit to another…




Okay, still another… how can I resist?





…and we wind our way east, through New Hampshire, along route 9, heading… home.

New Hampshire isn’t as colorful here, in the south. Good thing we drove to Vermont.
It's lovely here...
I mean, if you want to see fall colors, you may as well invest the extra time, no?
Look, though, isn't it lovely?

(an hour later)

Did you say southern New Hampshire isn’t as colorful? Look outside!
(a brilliant display of red, yellow, honey brown…)

And look now! They colors are so intense!
You have a point...

I think to myself – maybe it’s the setting sun. Maybe. Still, it’s damn gorgeous now…

Why do you suppose the car indicator says we’re heading north?
I don’t know… This road isn’t on the map you printed out for us…
We’ve been driving for a long time. We should be in Massachusetts… All I see is dense forest.

Where are we??

Apparently heading north, getting awfully close to Canada.

It’s dark before we locate a road that promises to take us back to where we came from.

A star, another, the smell of burning wood, one small town, then finally, a dozen more and eventually, many hours later, we are in Cambridge. Barely in time for dinner.

I give the white tank one final slap on the butt as a parting gesture. It served us well after all. Though I will say we got our share of glares from those behind us. I would have glared too. Pushy white tank. Who the hell drives that kind of a car up north? Who indeed.

The day ends with a pear berry crisp, with ice cream.