Mo & Terry Smedley

 

Part III - Meredith, NH to Burlington,  VT - Canterbury Shaker Village, Cafe Lafayette Dinner Train, Lake Willoughby, Jay Peak

For Dad:  On the Cafe Lafayette dinner train, we passed a bridge with a builder's plate by Bethlehem Steel.  It was gone too fast for me to get a picture.

Our Shaker Village guide Dean gives us some background on the Shakers just outside the Meeting House, the center of religious activities at the village.  The building was constructed in 1792. The Shakers didn't eschew technology like the Quakers or Amish.  In fact, they embraced it.  The Shaker village was an early adopter of electric power and had one of the first automobiles in the area.  Shakers held patents for several inventions, including a large-scale rotating bake oven, and a commercial washing machine.  I'm standing beside a building that had interesting embossed tin siding. This is a paste-up of the center of the Shaker village.  The Shakers practiced abstinence, which made it tough to sustain the movement.  Their primary source of new members were orphans which were adopted by the community.  At the height of the movement in the 1850s, there were 300 Shakers living in this one village.  Today, there are only three Shakers left in the United States.  This is looking into the forest surrounding the village.  The fall colors are beginning to show here.  Learned on the tour:  All laundry was done in a central location by workers specializing in that task.  Every building, room, and drawer or closet in the village had a unique number assigned to it.    The clothing belonging to individual members was marked with this number so that it could be returned to its proper location from the village laundry.  
Departing the Shaker Village, we drove past the site of the Old Man of the Mountain rock formation.  This is the New Hampshire State Emblem, and is stamped on the reverse of the New Hampshire quarter. In 2003, the rock formation collapsed due to natural freeze and thaw cycles.  You can't see any part of the face any longer.  Mo at the
"viewpoint" for the Old Man of the Mountain.		 Just beyond the viewpoint we found some nice color bordering a lake.
Another stop at The Basin, at Franconia Notch State Park.  A touring group of (serious) photographers was making its way through the park. Here is my attempt at artsy photography - a red leaf backlit by the bright sun. Mo at The Basin. One of the falls at The Basin.
Our dinner tonight is an elegant, five-course meal prepared and served aboard the Cafe Lafayette Dinner Train out of North Woodstock, NH. Our original itinerary had us riding the White River Flyer train up the Connecticut River out of White River Junction.  As the next few pictures show, the bridge across the river suffered major damage from Hurricane Irene.  Here's the train we would have been riding. You can see the major misalignment of the second girder in the White River bridge.  A large crew is working to put the bridge back in operation, but it won't be ready for another couple of weeks.
Another photograph of the girder misalignment caused by pier washouts. We stopped at a lovely rest area to enjoy the box lunches we would have been eating on the White River Flyer. A surprise stop at Lake Willoughby to enjoy the beautiful weather and colors that are becoming more pronounced as we head North.  
Another surprise was a chance to ride the tram to the top of Jay Peak, located just a few miles South of the Canadian border. Jay Peak tram. At the summit (3,858 ft).   Carl Fowler (our leader, far right) and Elwin Lefevre (with whom we've traveled frequently, just left of Carl) are enjoying the summit views. Anna Brown (from Chicago) is the youngster keeping our group going.  Anna is Polish, and has been trying to teach us to speak a little.  Dzien dobry, jak sie masz?  (Good morning, how are you?)
      At the summit of Jay Peak.
In the tram on the way down.     Heading to Burlington from Jay Peak, we passed a few covered bridges.