Fall Foliage, Southeast Massachusetts, 10/22-10/23

 

Route 105 mostly Marion, Acushnet, Rochester, Lakeville, Middleboro, Halifax... click on any picture to make it Bigga...

Perfect day for a Sunday drive

One of the fun parts of getting old is that this looks more and more like a tree on fire every year I age.

Mattapoisett River

I shot this poorly, had to level it, then had to choose between making the trees level or making the sign level. I chose neither.

I didn't really edit much for color or brightness, this is just what my camera did when we snap-shotted a few from the highway. I think the only edited one, brightness/color-wise, was the East Middleboro 4-H picture a few shots down below.

After the 105 run, we dipped up 58 North, cut over to 123, visited my brother, then headed for the highway through Hanover 

Route 105 rules not only for her trees, but because it is a lightly-travelled road where you can just stop in the middle of the road and bang away with Momma Camera. If you have a girl to watch traffic behind you, all the better.

I had to meddle with this one a bit, overdid it.... but I love this tree/building combo, we hit it every year that we do a foliage run

Some trees are still nearing peak color, so it is not too late to take your own ride

None shall pass... 

I was shooting through a fence, or otherwise I would have jacked that pumpkin.

We are generally respectful of people's property when we do photo rides, although your house may get into a shot if it looks cool

This would have been a much better shot if I walked into the guy's yard a bit and cut those wires and that storage unit out of my camera angle... but that would be violating the Primary Directive.

I can not more strongly recommend Route 105 for a foliage drive

I may yet try some sort of Route 28/18/79 path, or even a Bourne-to-Rhode Island run down Route 6... depends how my week goes. I also have a tree-lined street I have been watching (Grenwold Road) in Quincy that wasn't near peak last week but may be about right when I go to my dentist Thursday.

I was pulled over so this dude could pass me. I should have driven forward a first down or so to ixnay the iresway, but I would have been blocking an intersection and homeboy would have been too far down the road

It is funny when one tree is at peak for whatever reason and the others are still green.... it's like she overdressed or something.

We do sea-level foliage runs, as the section of Massachusetts that we cover isn't moutainous at all, so we have no sweeping vista shots. Sometimes, we shoot at one lonely tree.

As you can see, we made a dawn to dusk effort for you... OK, a noon to dusk effort. I like listening to football on the radio, so I made the run at gametime.

If I was a rabbit or something, I'd live in that.

As I said earlier, we sometimes shoot at individual trees.... and even ondividual leaves, if we see a cool one.

This tree really hasn't made up her mind yet.

From Hanover to Kingston on Route 3, the foliage was spectacular, with a stretch in the Duxbury/Pembroke area vivid enough that someone will probably wreck an SUV gawking at it. It sort of fades out some as you get into Plymouth, especially southern Plymouth.

I was gonna get out and twist the sign around so it could be read in my photo, but it might have been facing that way out of necessity. It's better for my readers if they can instead suprimpose their own interpretation onto whatever the sign may say, like a Rorschach test. 

I didn't edit this pic, and if I did, I would have saturated it less. Route 105 was taking no shorts this weekend.

None Shall Pass Here, Either

Whoever planted these trees in a row off 105 like that will be loved and respected by future generations of leaf-peepers. This is exactly what they ought to do with the Cape Cod Canal, for tourist purposes.

For all the leaf-peeping I do, and I have been at it in some form professionally for 20 years or so, I don't actually know which tree is an oak and which is an elm and so forth. I know pine, because Duxbury Beach... and I know maple, because they have a hockey team. Come to think on it, the only small birds I can identify are ones with baseball teams, like the Blue Jays or the Cardinals. All the other birds I know are larger ones that I eat.

Old School Leaf Peeper, signing off... for now