Words For Wednesday First Snow Photos

 "The first fall snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of world, and wake up in another quite different. "

                        ------ JB Priestley

Woke up this morning to the first snowfall of the season!

Travel Thursday Alaska Railroad Anchorage to Seward Photos

 Today's blog post is another  "Travel Thursday" post featuring photos taken outside of New England, featuring more photos taken in Alaska this September.

On September 6th, we drove to Anchorage early in the morning to catch the Alaska Railroad train departing at 7 am for a round trip down the coast to the town of Seward. I enjoyed every day that we spent in Alaska, but this day was really special and one of my top three days of the trip.

First let me give you a bit of information about the train ride. I booked us on "The Goldstar Service" and I highly recommend this option. The Goldstar train is a glass domed train car with beautiful open views. This car also has an open covered platform deck in the back where passengers can go outside to take photos from. I spent probably several hours out on the platform with my camera, and it was amazing. The crew on the train narrated the entire trip and would alert us as we were approaching scenic spots so we could get ready to take pictures. The Gold Star service also includes a delicious breakfast and dinner, and two alcoholic beverages. This trip was worth every penny in my opinion.

I also would like to mention that I purchased a rubber lens hood from Amazon before the trip. This lens hood was affordable, and it is helpful to eliminate interior glare and reflections when photographing through the window of the train. I found it to be a bit floppy at times, but I'm glad I purchased it, and it did help to eliminate interior reflections as I shot through the window of the train. Most of the images I will be posting were taken from the exterior platform, but a few were taken inside using the lens hood on my camera.

The train departed before sunrise, and as we were passing the Turnagain Arm, we caught a beautiful  sunrise on the right hand side of the train.

Here are 2 more morning photos I shot from the left hand side of the train.

The views are just amazing!

Here is one of the many glaciers that the train passed by along the ride. 

Another glacier

Curve in the tracks

Another glacier we saw. The mountains went in and out of the fog during the trip and the skies were changeable, but it eventually turned into a gorgeous sunny day once we arrived to our destination.

More views along the way

The next blog post will feature photos taken in Seward after we arrived, as well as some scenic photos from the train ride back to Anchorage that evening, Stay tuned!

Happy Halloween 2023

 My camera club did a Halloween photo shoot on Saturday evening. It was so much fun! All of the "characters" are members of the club.

                                    How lucky to have had a full moon that night!   

I hope you're having a spooktacular Halloween!

Fall Foliage Photos Vermont 2023

 Continuing with Fall foliage in Vermont, these images were all taken on October 3, in the NEK. We headed out very early in the morning. Our first stop was to check out the colors at Bean Pond in Barton. They were ok. Not the best, but certainly not the worst I've seen here.

We then went to my favorite location in Irasburg. The colors here were fantastic and the warm morning light was really pretty here.

I was very happy to see this school bus approaching. I shot this image with my IPhone. Notice the color differences between the image taken with the Nikon, and the image taken with the IPhone. I did not saturate either of these images, but clearly the IPhone image looks more saturated than the image from the Nikon.

Taken from the farm at the bottom of the hill......

This next photo was taken on a dirt road in Brownington VT. The color of this maple tree was so vibrant, and I also liked the tire swing. 

We were very fortunate to have pulled up behind this Amish buggy driven by a young boy.

On our return trip, we also came across this buggy driven by an Amish woman. I shot this image through the windshield of my car, and the next image I shot from the road.

In the afternoon, we headed over to Jay Peak. I took a vertical and a horizontal shot from this location. I like them both and decided to post both of them. Do you have a preference?

My friends took the gondola up to the top of the mountain. I decided to stay below on solid ground, as I'm not a fan of heights.

 It was a glorious Fall day, except it was very hot and humid. This hot and humid weather played a role in how the foliage played out in the NEK. The very hot and dry weather caused the leaves to drop prematurely at some elevations. As I wrote in a previous blog post, the 2023 foliage season in VT was really crazy.

However, there was still color to be found!!! More images in the next blog post from Fall 2023 in VT. Stay tuned!

Milky Way Photo Words For Wednesday

 

"We are all stars in this galaxy. All of us. Noone's greater than the other."

                                    ---------Scatman Crothers

Photo taken October 2. 2023 in the NEK of Vermont. 

Talkeetna Alaska Travel Tuesday

Travel Tuesday featuring more images taken outside of New England on the Alaska trip. Day 5 we woke up to a beautiful sunny day in Wasilla. We decided to head North to Talkeetna for a chance to see Mount Denali. It was about a 90 minute drive, but the further North we drove, the sky became mostly cloudy which dashed our hopes of seeing the mountain. 

We stopped along the way to see a few sea planes.

Downtown Talkeetna

This is where we would have seen Mount Denali if the clouds weren't there. The river was very high and rushing, as there had been a lot of recent heavy rainfall in the area.

We visited Alaska Wild Harvest Shop, which is a producer of Birch Syrup. As a New Englander, and a self proclaimed real maple syrup snob, I was very interested in seeing how birch syrup is produced, as well as having a taste test. The taste was not what I expected. To me, it had a strong flavor similar to balsamic vinegar. It's cetainly not something you would want to put on your pancakes, but I think it would probably make a good glaze when cooking salmon or chicken.

We learned that it takes 100 gallons of birch sap to make one gallon of birch syrup, unlike here in New England, it takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup. The process of making birch syrup is very similar to the process used in making maple syrup.

Although these buckets were just for "show" , it was interesting to see birch tree tapped with sap buckets as opposed to the maple tress we are used to seeing. 

Delicious dinner that evening. Seafood stuffed halibut for me, and chicken parmesan for Mr S.

Cheers!

I didn't take too many photos on this particular day, but stay tuned for some beautiful Alaskan photos in the upcoming blog posts.

Vermont Fall Foliage 2023

 I think the year 2023 is going to be known as the year of crazy foliage in Vermont, because, well, it really was crazy! I started my VT fall foliage trip in the NEK of VT on October 1st. The colors were sporadic. Some areas were bright and peak with reds as good as I've ever seen. But right down the road, there would be muted and blah colors. Around the corner, there would be bare trees. Like I said. It was crazy.

Wheeler Pond in Barton VT  October 1, 2023 (beautiful peak colors)

Wheeler Mountain Road October 1, 2023

Early morning, October 2 Bald Hill Pond in Newark VT

October 2, 2023 Newark Pond in Newark VT

Early morning moon Oct 2

Jobs Pond in Westmore VT Oct 2

Many more VT foliage posts will be coming, as well as some Travel Tuesdays and Thursdays, featuring more photos from Alaska.