New England Fall Trip 2024

In all the years Mark and I lived in Virginia, we never took a road trip to New England in the fall. In October of ‘24, I finally made it happen. We flew to Providence, Rhode Island, rented a car, and drove to Lenox, Massachusetts. We were a week early for the peak of color, but for my southern eyes, the leaves were heartbreakingly beautiful. Herman Melville’s house in Pittsfield, a pilgrimage site for me, was the most interesting for the study where he wrote Moby Dick, looking out of the window at Mount Greylock. We intended to hike there when we visited at the end of our trip — you can access the Appalachian Trail —but it was freezing cold and started to rain after we took in the view of the valley. We did hike at Monument Mountain among the ghosts of Melville and Hawthorne. All that fall beauty had to be at least a little part of their inspiration. In Stockbridge, we visited the small, charming library, and had lunch at the historic Red Lion Inn. We learned that the Norman Rockwell Museum and Studio had been moved from its original site on Main Street, called the quintessential street at Christmastime in America. The museum was much smaller then, and even in its larger space, only a portion of Rockwell’s paintings can be exhibited in the galleries. Visiting there and seeing the original works with his brushstrokes was a rare opportunity, along with walking the grounds to tour his little studio. The guide was an elderly gentleman, dressed in coat and tie, who had the bearing of a genial professor. As a docent for years, I appreciated he was one of the best. Another day we walked around the quaint shops in Lenox and took a tour of Edith Wharton’s elegant home where the likes of Teddy Roosevelt and Henry James visited. It was an impressive house for an incredibly impressive woman, the type of person that makes you wonder what the hell you’ve accomplished in your life. We ended our road trip with a stop in Old Town Alexandria and a visit to the National Gallery of Art in D.C. before spending the weekend in Durham with Matthew and Sharon. I include pics of their visit to Sleepy Hollow, NY, around Halloween, where the fall leaves were definitely at their peak.