Fall In New England!

Here in the city it's still pretty green. But with signs of fall beginning to appear Shannon and I have been anxious to see the leaves. Last year at this time our car had just broken down and despite many hours of working on it in our garage and several trips to the mechanic there was really no redeeming it. This year, with a working car in our hands, we have been so excited to get out of the city to see the fall leaves in New England!
Our ideas started w/ just a short Saturday afternoon drive to somewhere close like Sleepy Hollow. But the combination of perfect fall weather, leaves peaking up north, and an unusually easy weekend for me, Shannon and I found ourselves on Friday evening leaving for the weekend! It was very spur of the moment and we had our concerns but it turned out to be one of the funnest weekends we've had!
I picked a place on the map on Friday, made a reservation, and off we went. We stayed at Lake George, NY in the Adirondack Mountains on Friday night and woke up to more color than I've ever seen! I'll post pictures of what we saw, but I wish there was a better way to convey how amazing the scenery was. The town of Lake George, like the others in the area, was in the process of closing for the winter. The hotel where we stayed, the log pancake house where we had breakfast, the beds & breakfasts on the lake... everything was shutting down. McDonald's included! Where you would normally see "OVER 2 BILLION SERVED!" we found "See you in May 2009!". I get the feeling they don't contribute all that much to the other "2 billion served".
From Lake George we wandered our way into Vermont and traveled south on little tree-covered county roads and made a stop at a pumpkin farm before reaching Massachusetts. Vermont was a little post-peak, but North NY and western Mass were amazing. At this point we were expecting to head back home to NJ. But we'd been wanting to visit some friends of ours at Yale University in Connecticut so we headed there instead. Dinner with them turned into an extra night in CT before making the short drive home Sunday morning.
And Ashlynn was SO, SO good! She was nearly silent throughout the drive, but was sure happy when she was finally out of the car seat for good. Check out the video. Family keep wondering if she's losing any of her hair. As you can see it's still there, but she's got a funny Stevie Wonder-esque habit. You'll see what I'm talking about when you watch the video. If she keeps this up she'll have a real good bald spot on the back of her head.