Fall in Vermont seemed a bit slow to come. Way back in August there were some trees changing, but not a lot. September offered a hint of color with more coming on towards the end. Then the brilliant colors came and went. But I'm getting ahead of myself. It's time to roll back time to September. Spectacle Pond, early colors We visited Island Pond and Spectacle Pond along with Brighton State Park for an overnight…
Since moving last month most of our time has been spent getting settled in and figuring out where things are. We have been out and about a bit and our first hike was on the long trail starting out at Hazen’s Notch State Park.
Hazen’s Notch is a pass just south of us named for Moses Hazen who was a brigadier general in the Continental Army who led the construction of the road in 1779. It is now a State Park that provides access to Vermont’s famed Long Trail.
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There’s a few good reasons why we haven’t been to the San Juan Islands in Washington. The main one being the huge obstacle in the way of getting there, also known as Seattle. The other being that well, they are islands. Typically we’d truck camp to a destination like this but the extra step of ferrying to multiple islands made this an item that barely made the list of places to consider visiting. Then in 2021 we purchased our 16 foot Hewes Craft, also known as the Red Baron. All the sudden a visit seemed pretty intriguing and it got bumped up the list several slots. Our window for this exploratory trip was a week in June, we packed the boat and headed north. After a night in Washington Park in Anacortes we launched off into the salt for a week of adventure.
Our first stop was James Island. The original plan was a much more distant island, but with a small craft warning in effect we made the short hop over to James. There was one boat there upon arrival but they soon left and we had the place nearly to ourselves. After reading about James we worried about racoons raiding camp, but it seems that issue may be in the past.
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