As New Jersey skies increasingly disappoint me, –resembling the inside of a vacuum cleaner bag–, my heart and memory leap back to the Berkshires and the Green Mountains. OK, I’m this big New Jersey booster, but I’ve had it with gloom.
This is how Vermont skies looked, immediately on the heels of a Nor’easter. Deb and I headed over to Bennington from the Cozy Corner Motel, along Route 7. The Apple Barn is a key ritual of my trips to this region — for a cozy family place, with unbelievable vistas, and the best aged Vermont cheddar of my life. Ditto mountain apples. Baked goods aren’t bad, and the maple syrup is worth of the journey.
However, I’m giving you a feast for the eyes:
Clearing after Storm, Apple Barn, Bennington VT
Apple Barn Crops
Apple Barn Picnic Table
To the left, at another picnic table, a family was having a lovely outdoor feast, when the rain had hardly dried upon our windshield.
Bear and First Peeks of Sun
Monarch of the Apple Barn
Spent Sunflower, Magnificent Even in Death
Harvest Time
“Nothin’ but Blue Skies, From Now On…”
“The Party’s Over…”
“Who Has Seen the Moose, Neither You Nor I…”
One time, when I was alone at Cozy Corner and at a corner cafe in Bennington, I was the only person in there who had not seen the moose.
They do to moose what Hopewell just did to oxen:
Moose of Route 7
A few moments later, at a mansion near the Bennington Monument, we came upon this artistry.
Bennington Spectre Awaits Hallowe’en
Even the gloomy isn’t gloomy in this neck of the woods.
Can you see why I feel, it’s always beautiful in the Berkshires and Bennington?
