Over forests of red

Burlington, Vermont
I grew up in Ontario and this my favourite time of year in Eastern North America for many reasons.   But chief among those reasons is what happens to forests out here in the fall.   It is hard to describe to anyone who has never seen them, a maple forest in the fall, where the colours are bright yellow, orange and red.   Pitched against a blue sky, the scene is iconic, beautiful and stirs up a nostalgia in me for home.

Flying from Choicago to Burlington today, we crossed over the maple woodlots of the farming country of southern Ontario and upstate New York which were alive with the colour of turning.   Then over the Adirondacks, past Mount Marcy and Skylight, two peaks I have climbed upon, these ancient worn down mountains, 20 times older than the ones I live on now but still showing their grandeur and the shape of peaks and valleys covered with pine and spruce with pockets of yellow birch and red maple.   Over Lake Champlain, and into Burlington, a lovely older town on the lake, biger and more modern than I remembered it from a previous visit in 1993 but still small enough to have a main street feel about it.

Met up with my Art of Hosting mate Lenore Mewton and we stopped in at the CommunityMatters reception at the Echo Centre and then on for an excellent meal of contemporary Cantonese food at A SIngle Pebble.

Beautiful part of the world to retrun too, and I’m eagerly looking forward to the gathering tomorrow.