Trip to New England Day I - October, 2023

Today I am a Fall guy. Right now I am right on the border of New Hampshire and Vermont to watch the Fall foliage and create memories for future to Fall back on.

Weather here in beautiful New England is simply gorgeous, cool and crispy. Breathing a lung full of pure, mountain air cools down heart and mind. I expected it to be lot cooler, but it rather feels like late October in Georgia - the weather soothingly warm and bright.

When we entered into the state of Vermont, we realized that it became the 43rd state for us to visit in the United States out of a total of 50 states. Only the North and South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Idaho and Utah remain to see our visit. We are staying right next to the New Hampshire River which separates the states of Vermont and New Hampshire as a natural border, same as the Chattahoochee River separates the states of Georgia and Alabama.

The whole New England area is ablaze in Fall foliage. Last time I saw the spectacular Fall foliage of New England was in October 1997 when I visited Manchester in New Hampshire. Now I am back to New England again, in Vermont, to get drenched in the Fall color, soaking up the warmth of the sunshine on a crispy Fall day. Nothing vindicates John Keat's famous "Thing of beauty is a joy for ever" more than the beauty of Fall foliage in upper New England in full blaze.

Our drive on Vermont's State Highway 9 West on its famous Green Mountain was breathtaking, can't be explained in words, only to be seen in your own eyes. The bright, colorful leaves on faraway blue hills appeared as if the trees were filled with yellow and red butterflies fluttering under cool breeze under a crystal aquamarine sky. I saw a bright red leaf falling and suddenly it started defying gravity, deftly wafting upwards by the cool afternoon breeze, only to.drift further away, melting into the bottomless abyss of the mountain.

The lined up trees ladened in gorgeous fall color reflected on the blue lake water kissing their feet, creating another set of colorful, symmetrical and mysterious parallel universe underwater. The far hills covered in fall foliage seemed like a bunch of tall beauties in blue caps wearing red and yellow lipsticks. A string of long trees looked like tall, pretty girls wearing colorful embroidery of red and yellow weaved together on a Sambalpuri saree. What a enthralling sight it was !!!

Standing on the historic Creamery covered bridge in Brattleboro, Vermont we watched the soothing music of a silvery, gurgling mountain spring spiraling downhill. A canopy of trees filled with color was shedding the spring from both sides, as a loved wraps his strong, protective arms across his beloved. Pretty leaves were falling into the arms of the gurgling mountain spring, somersaulting, dancing and drifting away to someone's arms of in some distant, unknown fairyland, same as a moth falls for the flame, draws into it to knowingly to get burnt. Unwillingly, I was murmuring a stanza from the epic Odia song from the movie "MANA AKASHA" (1974) -

"RE BANA JHARANA,
NAACHI NAACHI JAANA.
E MORA MAINA,
DHARAA DIANA."

Transliterated

O Forest Spring,
Don't go dancing.
O my dear Myena
Always keep escaping.

Watching the mountain spring streaming down I couldn't stop remembering the following Mukesh number from Sanjeev Kumar's movie "ANOKHI RASTA"..

"TAAL MILE NADI KE JAL MEIN,
NADI MILE SAGAR SE .
SAGAR MILE KAUNSI JALME,
KOI JAANENA".

Transliterated,

"Spring falls into river,
River goes into the sea.
To which water the sea merges into,
No one ever sees".

I was wondering too which river the sea mergest into. More later...