Baxter State Park

Fall is the best season and New England is the best place to experience it. I know the Midwest is pretty good but it doesn't really compare when you consider the vistas of woods and mountains in the Northeast. I used to go up to Baxter State Park in Maine on Columbus Day weekend for a camping trip with friends. It was the usually the last weekend it was open for overnight camping for the season. We picked different places in the huge park each time. The first fall trip I went with high school buddy Mike and some of his coworkers and we hiked up the Abol Trail to Mt. Katahdin, which is one end of the Appalachian Trail.

Thoreau visited the place and wrote about it in his collection The Maine Woods. I first read his book on a previous visit to the park during a late summer trip. The next year for the fall trip only three of us returned and we stayed in the northern part of the park at a camp site that could only be reached by canoe. It was after dark when we arrived, surprising a young moose on the road, and then we ended up paddling out very carefully across the pond to our site. The fall colors were explosive shades of orange and red and at night we had our first experience with the greens and purples of the Aurora Borealis. Fall is the time I miss New England the most and especially this past weekend when a visit to Maine would have been perfect. And today would have likely been the day for the obligatory pilgrimmage to the L.L. Bean store in Freeport on the drive home. I will try and dig up some pictures from these trips.