The highways headed to Vermont this fall are crowded with all the “leaf peepers” that annoy the locals so much at this time of the year. I get it. Having recently returned from my first trip through Route 30 and seen many of the sites in this magical state, I can understand why the whole experience is so legendary and why so many films and novels speak of Vermont in the fall.
Before explaining, here is a case for four seasons that are evident in every aspect of the foliage and weather. Some people dream of going to California, Florida, or Cancún, Mexico, to escape the magic of changing seasons. I don’t get it. I would rather embrace it fully, not just in pictures but real life.
Nothing in this world is as enticing as watching the spring arrive from a dark winter, the summer flourish from what were only buds a few months earlier, the thrill of the harvest season arrive in all its bounty, and the winter settle in following the holiday season as everyone struggles to find ways to make snow and freezing cold fun.
The seasons have been the source of dreamy poetry, paintings, and music since the ancient world. They are seen as a metaphor for the range of human personalities, the mood cycles of life, the pathway of maturation and adulthood, and finally, of course, the intergenerational transition of birth, death, and birth again.
This is what the seasons are for. They help us understand that which is otherwise inexplicable. This is why I cannot imagine living in a geography from which they are absent. The seasons build character, reveal deeply spiritual mysteries, and tap a deep reserve in our hearts that triggers the aesthetic imagination.
That established, what is the point of Vermont in the fall? In the United States, it is the home of the first turning of the leaves from summer to fall. Later, similar scenes come to Connecticut, Virginia, and then flood ever south. For now and first, the state of Vermont is filled with glorious mountains with an unimaginable diversity of types and therefore paces of turning based on the time of the year.
To observe the leaves in late October in Vermont is to have something more glorious in front of you than is offered by the finest Renaissance painting or anything you can generate from artificial intelligence. It’s as if God himself arrived to paint from nature that is so vast and complex that no human can take it all in. You can only stop the car, get out, and stand in silent awe and disbelief at all unfolding before you.
The colors are not only infinitely complex, but also seemingly in motion, dancing just for you.
It’s the moment when you realize that nothing we create in our lives will ever be as beautiful as that which nature creates. That infuses us with a certain kind of humility. We can only bow before this thing we call nature and nature’s God. That is the beginning and end of wisdom. What we call science has attempted but failed to replace it.
Being in Vermont itself is an awesome experience. It is a state that strangely escaped modernization. It seems like nothing new has been built there in about 75 years. The inns, the restaurants, the farm stands, the motels and hotels, the clubs, the roads—everything seems to be from another time.
You notice it immediately when the cellular internet dies on your phone. My guess is that community activism has stopped the building of cellular towers. I did not see the insignia 5G on my phone the entire time I was there. This is good and bad, of course, but certainly sends you back.
We would stop along the way at farm stands. The volume of pumpkins, gourds, pies, jams, and authentic maple syrup products just defies the imagination. I saw piles of greens, tomatoes, and other vegetables that were shocking in their profligacy. Barrels and barrels of them. At one farm stand, the proprietor had made some 50 loaves of fresh wheat bread to sell. I simply could not imagine.
Then there was the distillery and coffee house. I just happened in and there was a man playing a very small acoustic guitar without amplification and a woman singing. They were performing old folk songs for customers who were sipping on coffee, lounging on large leather sofas, and otherwise talking softly with each other. It’s the kind of place in which you want to stay for hours or days.
I was obviously out of place, one of these out-of-town leaf peepers. I was certainly treated that way by a population that is not used to outsiders and slightly resents them. But there is no way to go to such a place without a certain sense of envy that this is not your life. In particular, I was intrigued by the local liquors that never leave the state and are only consumed by locals.
There is a romance about the whole thing that is otherwise lost in a time of globalization and franchise domination of everything. You hardly see them at all in Vermont. When they do appear, local regulations make them conform in a way that does not disturb the character of the community.
For that matter, there are no billboards on the roads. And the speed limits: I can only say, prepare yourself to travel at the speed of a horse through small towns where the largest building is the Congregationalist church and the competing Episcopalian and Catholic churches. The town hall is modest by comparison.
Yes, it seems like the land that time forgot. I’m of mixed feelings about this. I’m a partisan of capitalism who is profoundly aware that this system went wrong at some point in the past. There is no question of a socialist orientation in the politics of this state.
That said, it is a strange version of socialism. The taxes are insane and buying a home there requires riches that Gen Z cannot imagine. That said, property owners face zero restrictions on what they can build on their land, which is highly unusual in this country. Small businesses and homeowners are left alone, provided they pay prohibitive taxes.
The regulators seem to not have a big role in the state beyond keeping the regulators at bay.
What kind of life does this system provide for those who can afford it? It’s the best life that one can imagine. The beauty is immeasurable. The charm is overwhelming. The pace of life takes one back to a time before we were all born. Being in Vermont, with its plethora of farm stands and locally owned inns, inspires a kind of nostalgia that no city in the United States can equal.
I would not argue that this state has everything right. It is blessed with incomparable natural beauty, but I’m sure that the political establishment is as rapacious as any. That said, there is a culture of the place that secures a lifestyle that seems implacably stable in deeply unstable times.
Another thing you see in Vermont is backpackers making their way through the roads and trails. It’s not my way, but I admire the tenacity and dedication to the task they exhibit. In fact, driving through the place in my car triggered just a slight pang of guilt. Should we not all be in carriages pulled by horses? Or in vintage cars, at the very least?
This is how this sparsely populated state feels. It certainly takes one back in time to when things were real, local, and community-centered. I’m sorry for the state’s left-wing reputation, but it is certainly a strange breed of ideology that revels in protecting all that has always been against the winds of change. If this is socialism, it might not be entirely unobjectionable ... as long as one can afford it.
