A dream from the Berkshires

The GPS had taken us on this narrow wooded road to get to the base of Mount Greylock in Western MA last week. My good friend and fellow photographer Al Utzig is known for his signature "curve in the road shots". Check out his portfolio. His work is amazing!! http://goldimagesphoto.com/ (Click on Portfolio to find his various albums.) You have probably noticed his influence on some of my Fall road images!
I just got home from camera club, and was looking for a recent image to post for todays photo. I found this curve in the road shot, and gave it a dreamy look.......VOILA! I love it!!!
This one's for you Al!!!! ;-)

Day 202/Year 2

The Wedding Decor

The wedding reception was held at the Lodge at Camp Kiwanee in Hanson MA. We LOVED this venue, and it went perfectly with the rustic country Fall wedding theme that Miss J wanted. My talented "forever friend" Nancy Carey was our unofficial "wedding planner." Nancy is the secretary for our Dept at work, and her attention to detail is remarkable. She also was a florist in a previous life........the three of us......Nancy, Miss J, and myself were a dream team. We all worked so well together and Nancy was a Godsend. There's no way I could have gotten everything done without her help.

The following images were not taken by me....they were taken by my forever friend, ie: unofficial wedding planner, ie: photographer....the one and only multi talented Nancy Carey. Thanks Nancy for sending me these images and allowing me to put them up on my blog.
Here's the fireplace in the foyer as you enter into the lodge....totally decorated by Nancy, including a framed image of Miss J and Steve in the center. How beautiful is this as an entrance to a wedding reception???

All of our fresh flowers were purchased through Whole Foods. The Whole Foods Florist made all of the girls bouquets and the guy's boutineers. Nancy came to the meeting at Whole Foods with me and Miss J and coordinated all of the additional flowers to be used to decorate to coordinate with the bouquets. Nancy put together each centerpiece, inside of mason jars, placed on a slice of fresh birch that was cut by my nephew Gregory:

The lodge has a full wrap around covered deck that overlooks the pond. Here it is decorated for Miss J's wedding:

Back inside, here's my boss :-), (who also was a huge help the morning of the wedding...she spent hours helping Nancy decorate the lodge) looking at the mini pumpkin seat placing cards. By the way, all of the pumpkins, mini pumpkins, gourds, hay bales, corn stalks, cranberries were purchased from Lolan's Farm in Middleboro MA. A big shout out to Sue from the farm for all of her help in coordinating all of the purchases!!! Everything was perfect!!!!

Okay, back to Leah looking at the mini pumpkins.......

Here's the gift table. See the card gift treasure chest box? That was handmade by my son in laws Dad that he made for his daughters wedding before he passed away. My son in law gave it a fresh new coat of paint, and I think it was so special to have this family special keepsake at the wedding!

These next two images were taken by me. This first one is the top of the piano in the "Library Room" of the lodge. This is the room where we had the appetizer tables and the apple cider table set up. The DJ actually played the piano out there for a while during the cocktail hour!

Finally, here's the second mantle in the lodge. This on is located in the library room. I ordered these votive holders with Miss J and Steves names, monogram, and date of the wedding, and they were placed on the mantle with a fresh apple inbetween them.

If I were not the Mother Of The Bride, I would have gone nuts taking pictures of the decor. It was beautiful.......and I can say that with pride. Thank you Nancy, Leah, and Diane for everything.

Day 201/Year 2

Back to the wedding

My Mother-In-Law came by for a visit today. She commented on how much she has enjoyed seeing the foliage pictures........BUT........."Aren't there any more wedding pictures???"
Yes, Mom, here are some more wedding pictures, just for you!
I'm not sure what was going on here with my 3 kids, but I can only imagine.......................:-)

Here's Miss J with her new family!!!

Here's Miss J and Steve with their good friends.....the 2 Amandas and their SO's.

I caught this group together on the dance floor and they posed for a photo.....(Jay's adorarable gf Amanda, Mr S, Jay, and Miss J)

Here's a very special one for my Mother-In-Law.......here are her 4 beautiful grandaughters!!!! (Alia, Cara, Miss J, and Shantal)

No words needed for this last one..........

Sigh...........

Southwest Vermont

This week was my first trip to the Southwestern area of Vermont. I loved it here! Just like the Berkshires in Western MA, I really wished that I had more time to spend in this area. I will return to this area at some point for sure. Here's a farm in North Pownal:

Peak foliage in North Pownal VT:

A typical country road in North Pownal VT:

My friend and fellow photographer, "Charles", from the Scenes of Vermont Foliage Forum, has shared many images he has taken from Carpenter Hill Road in Southwest Vermont. I'd like to thank Charles for telling me about this gem of a road. I never would have found it on my own. It's a beautiful dirt country road that is lined in areas with apple orchards, and also has some stunning views. Here are a few of my images from Carpenter Hill Road:

No matter where you go in the state of Vermont, you will find beauty. It is never ending.......

North Adams MA

Often times when things don't work out the way we planned, an unexpected photo op comes our way. I just love when this happens. This next shot is one that I took on the road after we got out of the road from hell (mentioned in the blog below) The colors were beautiful and even though this was taken smack dab during the mid day light, I don't find the lighting too harsh.

Day 198/Year 2

We made our way to downtown North Adams......oohing and aahing over the beautiful foliage along the way. (I was oohing and aahing......Mr. S, not so much) :-) The man was hungry and needed to be fed! I don't know where the people who live out this way go out to eat. There was nothing in the area, until we hit North Adams. We had a fantastic lunch at "The Hub", which was located right by our hotel. After lunch, the hotel was nice enough to let us check in early....it was around 1:30 pm. We went up to rest, and ended up falling asleep. We were both exhausted from the wedding week, and we had been up since 4:30 that morning. So much for my well planned itinerary. I didn't include nap time on it. Needless to say, we never made it to the Natural Bridge State Park. Next time..........

Here's downtown North Adams:

Pretty, huh? This is such a beautiful area. I can't wait to go back and spend more time here. I loved the old architecture and all of the history here, and the rolling hillsides popping with Fall color were the icing on the cake. Loved it!

So I put three blogs up tonight. Not sure if I'm caught up or not but I'm tired. Will post some SW Vermont photos tomorrow. I loved it there too!!!!

Waterfalls in Western MA

 As I just wrote, most of the Mohawk Trail is still closed and there are lots of detours our in Western MA from Hurricane Irene. One of the places I had planned for us to visit was Tannery Falls in Savoy MA. I had the route all mapped out. We were on the road to get to the parking area, where we would park before the hike into the falls. The road was dirt, single lane, rutty, steep, and not in the best condition. But we drove it anyways. And we drove, and drove and drove......until we got the point where the road was completely washed out and we couldn't go any further. Oops............Sorry Mr. S. Thanks anyways for the ride from hell through the woods..........Seriously, he was okay with it, but I felt bad!! The good news is there was a pond alongside where the road was washed out so I took a few shots.

Day 195/Year 2

So, the long trip through the road from hell wasn't a waste of time afterall. I was disappointed we couldn't physically get to the waterfall, but I knew we had one more waterfall on our itinerary.

We eventually made our way to Waconah Falls State Park in Windsor MA. I LOVED it here. It was a short hike down to the falls from the parking lot. It's a beautiful waterfall. I had some difficulty photographing with the lighting. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and there were dapples of bright sunlight that made the scene spectacular to look at, but it made photographing the falls quite difficult. I did the best with what I had and here are 2 of the shots I got here:

On this second shot, notice the shaft of light coming down on the right hand side. Not ideal for waterfall photography, but I found it pretty cool so I left it in the image.

These were taken around noontime. Remember, we had hit the road in SE MA at 5:30am. I got quite a few shots that morning!

By the way, we have since found out there is a second more direct road to get to Tannery Falls State Park that we could have taken. Oops. Oh well, the road from hell was an adventure not soon to be forgotten! :-)

Western MA

I'm home!!!! I have so much catching up to do here on the blog. It's pouring rain outside right now, and I just heard a crack of thunder. I think I'll go back to the photos taken out in Western MA for this post. We had such a fantastic day on Tuesday. The weather was perfect. Rte 2 (The Mohawk Trail) is basically closed....a big majority of it is........so we took the Mass Pike out to Rte 91 North and then took Route 116. Route 116 is a gorgeous drive.....a lovely country road with beautiful views and farm fields etc. I had the trip all mapped out and we were on our way!!!! Here's one of the farms along Rte 116 in Ashfield MA:

Day 194/Year 2

St John's Eoiscopal Chrurch in Ashfield:

This boggy area along Rte 116 in Plainfield was a "must stop at" spot. The reflections were perfect that morning.

I threw a stick in the water to get the ripples on this one, then rotated the image in post

Here's the Plainfield Town Beach.

I fell in love with this part of Massachusetts. I will surely make a return trip out here at some point. It's a really beautiful section of our state that deserves a lot more time to explore than I had during this trip.