Despite the best weather forecasting, no one can predict precisely how New England’s storied autumn will look to travelers. In 1999, an unusually dry summer caused meteorologists and foresters to warn that autumn would lack its renowned bright colors and that the season would be short. But a trip through Maine and Massachusetts in mid-October proved them substantially wrong.
Traffic on Interstate Highway 93 north from Boston was light, and from the look of the trees, the forecasters at first appeared on the mark. Leaves drooped from summer drought, and colors were muted at best. Autumn’s late arrival and the unseasonably warm weather had one good effect–a chance to stop in Portsmouth, N.H., and enjoy an alfresco lunch overlooking the active harbor.
A New England tide had already begun, turbid seawater visibly rushing up the Piscataqua River’s estuary. For a Midwesterner, the sight of tugs and yachts fighting the strong currents of a tidal bore is a source of endless fascination, but the locals take it for granted, simply enjoying their microbrews on the restaurant’s deck as gulls swoop down to maraud the strewn oyster crackers.
The north end of the Portsmouth bridge is anchored in the state of Maine, and autumn’s colors soon became more vibrant as forests thickened. U.S. Highway 1 and Interstate Highway 95 both generally follow the same coastal route as the tracks of the old Boston and Maine Railroad, and with every mile northward Maine’s forests began to put on quite a display.
Much of what makes a New England autumn so spectacular is the region’s mix of conifers and deciduous trees. Conifers such as pine and spruce hold their deep green hues and form a background for colorful broadleaf varieties that change their vivid summer greens to pink, red, scarlet, vermilion, umber, brick, yellow, gold. Granite outcroppings add to the show when their quartz crystals glimmer in the sun. Shore towns such as Kennebunkport with its yachting aficionados and Freeport with shopping malls and outlet stores lie just east of the highway, but the autumn colors proved more attractive than the chance to shop.
Fall colors really came into their own in the many peninsulas hanging down into the Gulf of Maine east of Brunswick. There, endless numbers of trees march up over hills and come down to the edges of the bays penetrating the coasts. Noteworthy among these fingers of land, the Pemaquid Peninsula reaches out into Muscongus Bay. Its oft-photographed lighthouse sees fewer tourists in fall, and it can be downright dangerous to clamber out to the point along the upended columns of slate pounded by high winds and treacherous breakers.
Towns in the Pemaquid area have much to recommend them, and each has its partisans. New Harbor’s Back Cove, a quiet arm of the sea, changes with the tides that course back and forth underneath its footbridge. Shaw’s, New Harbor’s seaside fish house, closes in early October, but plenty of good outlying restaurants beckon.
Christmas Cove offers elegant vistas over its bay. By October, the great sailing yachts have gone south or have been hoisted into storage, and its drawbridge goes quiet, but the huge houses on bluffs overlooking the cove give some hint of Christmas Cove as a summer retreat for well-heeled urbanites.
Tourists and locals alike stop for a piece of pie at Moody’s Diner on U.S. 1 in Waldoboro. Whether it’s a berry pie or a cream pie, no one is disappointed.
Damariscotta seems almost a metropolis after many of these small towns, but it’s the area’s center of commerce and home to The Breakfast Place on Main Street, the best reason to get out of bed on a cool New England morning. You have to squeeze by the kitchen to get to the dining room overlooking the harbor, by which time the smell of the homemade bread and muffins has seduced even the most determined dieter. The menu changes daily, but the crab omelet and the homemade corned beef hash represent some of the finest Down East cooking.
Bob’s Lobsters in the woods beyond Nobleboro, north of Damariscotta, advertises its presence with small signs along U.S. 1. Even if you’re not in the market for his lobsters at rock-bottom prices, Bob also sells tropical fish and handmade outhouses. This drive to Bob’s proved worthwhile for other wildlife. A flock of a dozen or more wild turkeys had left the woods and was feeding in a grassy meadow. Their heads bobbed and their spectacular fans of tail feathers announced their presence.
Driving through the Maine woods you may encounter more than wildlife. Solitary figures with collecting bags moving furtively among the trees may be hunting the elusive mitsutake mushroom. The best specimens of this porcini-like fungus barely poke above the surface, so it takes a keen eye to spot them. Hunters also keep the best fields a closely guarded secret. Mushrooms collected today will be trucked quickly to the city, sold to a wholesaler and flown out of the country tomorrow to satisfy the Japanese palate.
By the time New England’s colors have come into their full October richness, much of the weekday tourist business has shut down for the season. This means that, during the week at least, roads are less crowded than at summer’s height. Nevertheless, U.S. 1 coming south through Wiscasset to Brunswick can have miles-long traffic jams on Sundays. This makes using back roads advisable not only from the standpoint of less stressful travel but also for their generally better viewing conditions.
The only sensory lack to 1999’s New England fall was the scent of gentle smokiness of burning leaves, a practice no longer permitted by most communities out of both safety and environmental concerns. This lack was made up for with a stop at Kohn’s Smoke House outside St. George. Unctuous salami and other smoked sausages and fish made a superb quick lunch on the way to Rackliff and Sprucehead Islands. These outposts teem with architecturally diverse homes set so artfully within the woods that only their driveways give away their sites within the gradually denuding fall trees.
A morning in Rockland offered a peek into Maine fine art, the Farnsworth Museum loaded with native daughter Louise Nevelson’s paintings and sculptures in one gallery and the works of the Wyeths in a converted New England church.
In Rockland, as in many New England ports, the best place for lunch turned out to be a harborside spot, The Landings, where the local seafood always stars in clam rolls and other fried shellfish sandwiches.
On the road south out of Maine, Portland presented a new but nonetheless authentic Maine shopping experience. Its new multilevel Public Market showcases the edible bounty of the area.
The trip back toward Boston and on to Cape Cod held more surprises. A week later from the drive north out of Boston, the colors had deepened along U.S. 1. West of Boston on Interstate Highway 495 toward the town of Harvard, site of the university’s observatory and home of apple orchards. The hills held the maples’ marvelous reds and oranges among the birches’ golden leaves The scent of apples crushed for cider filled the breezes.
Despite Massachusetts’ notoriously poor signage and traffic circles befuddling non-natives, the suburbs of Lexington and Concord and the shores of Thoreau’s Walden Pond never fail to fascinate with their remarkable history and their present beauties.
Circling west of Boston on Massachusetts Highway 128 (Interstate Highway 95) , travelers beheld Boston’s wooded suburbs showing off their best fall colors. A side trip west to Millis on Massachusetts Highway 109 through Medfield gave a better closeup of Massachusetts’ maturing autumn.
The panorama from the lofty bridge over the canal onto Cape Cod immediately displayed the autumn of 1999 less advanced on the cape than on the mainland. The oaks held their summer green against the sand dunes. Traveling Alternate U.S. Highway 6 across the cape’s north coast proved superior to the southern route where strip malls and urbanization have masked the cape’s rusticity.
Three days of intermittent rain and blustery, gale-force winds kept tourists to a minimum on Provincetown’s funky streets, but many stores had already closed for the season. Smart shoppers still plied the remaining retailers, seeking postseason bargains. Beaches suffered similar desertions, but hardy souls still sought shells around Race Point Beach beyond Provincetown’s airport.
At Marconi Beach, where the first transatlantic radio broadcasts took place, historical dioramas in their seaside kiosks served as much for shelter from the 50 m.p.h. winds as for education. Most of the seaside lodging had closed for the winter, but the few still open were crowded with the season’s last travelers seeking substantially reduced rates.
Choosing the right road to see fall’s colors holds the key to success for finding the best photo opportunity or the prime viewing spot. In general, smaller roads offer the best opportunities. A two-lane highway with trees arching over may provide a perfect autumn palette, the leaf fall on the road barely disturbed. On the small roads one may pull to the side easily to take pictures and to listen for birds undisturbed. In other instances an Interstate highway overpass or bridge may afford just the right elevation over the treetops for a breathtaking panorama unavailable from a small road.
New England’s topography assisted powerfully in making the region an outstanding venue for viewing the 1999 autumn colors. Rolling hills and low mountains afford views from valleys and crests that multiply the number of trees visible at any one time. The same autumn tints may exist in Indiana, but its flatlands don’t allow one to see beyond those trees immediately adjacent to the road. In New England, it’s as if the earth tipped itself up on a platter to show off to travelers the splendors at hand.
