Nostalgia as the Excuse, but Not the Destination

Highway 100 is routinely mentioned as one of the most scenic routes in Vermont.  Little had we known almost 13 years ago when we drifted down to Waitsfield from our honeymoon destination further up in Stowe that we were on the beauty trail,.  We only knew that it was an idyllic little village that warranted a parking place and a stop for lunch.  Today, all these years later, we targeted it as the northernmost focal point of our venture up VT-100.  We had the day, a full tank of gas, and the draw of nostalgia to move us northward. 

Indeed, they proved to be miles and memories worth the investment of the day, alongside rivers, waterfalls, and what felt like wave after wave of colored hillsides nudging our little vessel along the currents of autumn.  Once in Waitsfield, we absorbed the community update volunteered by the gift shop owner otherwise busy painting her 26th year of wooden ornaments just off the highway.  We took her advice for lunch, but passed on the ornaments.  After a quick walk around town, we were ready for the road home. 

It was, after all, the serendipitous lake, barely 30 minutes away from our starting point, not the town, well over an hour further down the road, that had captured our imagination on the drive north.  Echo Lake, more linear than geometrical, stretches along the road just outside Plymouth, the birthplace of Calvin Coolidge.  The still water offers itself as a horizontal canvas for the sloping palette of trees circling and rising above it; the mountainous colors duplicated in the reflection.  It was this lake that finally drew us out of the car and into its enveloping silence for a hike, an absorbing view along its edge, and the tearing sound in the soul as we eventually drove away.  The placid lake, and its almost photographic duplication of the golds, the yellows, the greens and reds above it. 

I don't know where we will go tomorrow, but we can only pray for an equal serendipity to remind us of the value of a flexible vision, attentive eyes, and a willingness to park where memory has not already paved the way and rutted the view.