We drove from Massachusetts to North Hyde Park in Vermont along route 91 north. The distance was about 150 miles and the drive was pretty easy. As we got close to our destination, Lisa did a great job of making sure that we drove the best route to the RV park. This is a very beautiful RV park with a huge open field in front of the park. The park is situated in an area that is surrounded with deciduous trees, so the border around the camp is beautiful. There are some trees in the RV parking areas, but they do not impair our rooftop satellite dish. We had the most beautiful, red tree right next to our trailer, so it was very easy to pick out our trailer from the air (drone shots).

MAJOR NOTE: I cannot put into words how beautiful the foliage is in New England. It was great when we were in Massachusetts, but it has gotten much better in upper Vermont and New Hampshire. We had a cold spell in mid-September, and this seemed to have sped up the changing of the colors of the trees. We hit it just right!! On a sunny day, the colors are so bright and vivid that they hurt your eyes. Even though I have taken many photos of the trees, the pictures do not do justice to the beauty and grandeur that abounds around us. The pictures in the gallery will give you an idea of what we are seeing, but it is even better in person. We highly recommend that each of you plan to make a trip to upper Vermont or New Hampshire at some time in your lives. It is well worth the time and effort.

One of the first things that we did was visit the Von Trapp Family Singers Lodge in Stowe, Vermont. The Von Trapps are the family upon which the movie, The Sound of Music, was based. When they were able to escape from Europe before WWII, they eventually, ended up in northern Vermont near the town of Stowe. They had a small lodge and rented out space. They later added time-share condos, a beer brewery, hiking and skiing trails, and more. The family did not make any money from the movie, so they had to "start from scratch" when they came to the states. For $15 each, we had day passes to the grounds and a guided tour/history lesson that lasted about 1.5 hours. We learned a lot about the family and found that the movie changed the family's story in many ways for cinematic effect. We saw the graveyard (right next to the lodge) where the Von Trapps are buried. We even got to meet and talk with one of the Von Trapp grandchildren. After having lunch on the grounds of the lodge, Lisa and I went for a hike on some of the hiking and biking trails on the property. The property is very big on cross-country skiing and holds national championships at the lodge. On our hike, we notice these long blue tubes running up and down the hill. We found a lot of trees with green tubing wrapped around them and then this tube was attached to the larger blue tube running down the hill. Turns out that it is for collecting maple syrup from the sugar maple trees in the area. At a certain time of the year, they will tap into the tree and the vacuum in the line draws the sap out of the tree and down to a catch basin. This is how maple syrup is made today.

We set out on a day-drive to "Smuggler's Notch." Smuggler's Notch is a narrow place in the mountains pretty close to where the Von Trapp Lodge is located. It is known for its narrow road through the gap in the mountains (that is what a "notch" is) with terrain on both sides and trees in beautiful colors. We stopped and made several drone flights to get the most out of the colors of the region. We then drove into Cambridge and purchased some sandwiches for a picnic lunch. This was a fun drive to a beautiful area on a nice day. It is so much fun just to drive though the mountains when the trees are at their peak in color change. Quite an experience.

This RV park is two miles from the town of North Hyde Park, Vermont. North Hyde Park is the town where Lisa's mom grew up and went to school. Lisa's parents would take the family on trips to visit relatives in North Hyde Park and the surrounding areas. Lisa remembers the houses, the church next door, the school across the street, the small store down the road that doubled as a post office for the town, and some of her grandparents and cousins. We drove into the town and drove up behind the church next to Lisa's mom's old house and talked to a neighbor. Another person lives in the house, and the church is basically boarded up and crumbling before their eyes. We also drove to a couple of the small lakes that are near town where Lisa and her family would go swimming and play in the water. This all brought back great memories. We made a dinner appointment with Lisa's cousin, Dawn Lefevre. Dawn is a fantastic person and we had a great time meeting her. She and her husband have a home on thirteen acres of land with a very nice pond. Be sure to look at the photo gallery to see Dawn's home; it is beautiful with the pond and trees changing color. We traveled with Dawn to places that she and Lisa had known when they were young. We also visited some family graves of relatives who passed in the mid-to-late1900s. We ended up looking all over the cemetery to no avail and then found the graves that we were looking for right next to our parked truck. We also met a good friend of Dawn's whose name is Stephanie. She is an RVer too and has traveled all around the country. We had a great time visiting with Stephanie and Dawn and learning so much about this area from Lisa's past.

We drove to Waterbury, Vermont to go to the Cold Hollow Cider Mill. They make about 4,000 gallons of apple cider every day and thousands of apple spice donuts. We had coffee and cider along with our donuts and, boy, are they good. This is a very busy place and we stopped by to talk to the man who was making donuts. Turns out that he is the owner and he was great to talk to. They even do "mail-order" donut sales. He said that they get up at 4:00 in the morning and start making 400 dozen donuts just for their mail-order business. Turns out that they do 50% of their annual business during September and October when tourists come to Vermont to see the change of fall colors. Pretty amazing.