Conservative's Conscience

New Hampshire Foliage

Live Free plus Foliage

"You spent all day yesterday looking at trees and leaves?" my friend asked.

"Yup"

"And you drove over 400 miles to do it?"

"Uh huh," I replied.  "Do it every year."

That ended the conversation.  Obviously, my friend thinks I'm a bit weird. 

Perhaps so.  But I'm unapologetic about it.  True beauty is a nourishment that this Pilgrim needs to experience on a regular basis in order to maintain a sense of balance in an unbalanced world.

So what?  What does that have to do with trees, leaves and driving 400 miles doing nothing but looking at stuff?

Let me explain.

The stuff I looked at was the colorful foliage of New Hampshire; the "nothing" I was doing was the same kind of nothing one does in an art museum.

We are, I claim, given our five senses for more than purely functional reasons.  They are also a gift, given to us so that we may experience the pleasure of what we touch, hear, see, smell and taste. 

In that light the five senses become highways to our imagination, that marvelously unique human tool which can translate experiences into something that makes us proud of being human.  And that "something" can be called beauty. 

But beauty to me is more than something that brings pleasure to the senses.  In a deeper way, it is that which ennobles man (in the universal sense); it makes him taller; it uplifts him.

I need beauty, and I primarily seek it out through two senses: hearing, that permits me to enjoy great American music, and sight, that permits me to regularly slow down for a day and look at -- really look at -- this beautiful earth of ours.

What better time to do it than early October?  What better place than New England? What better state than New Hampshire with its White Mountains?

I take a very special route to get to the area that satisfies my appetite for the visual beauty  my eyes were created to see.  I came to it quite by accident.   

Years ago, after several years of getting stuck in traffic around Conway, NH (and after writing a letter of protest that was prominantly carried in the local newspaper), I vowed never again to drive through that town. 

I never have, but that decision presented me with a quandary: How do I get maximum exposure to foliage on the one hand, and skip Conway on the other?

Determination conquers all.  The solution is to take route 93 north; leave it at exit 35 to route 3; continue on route 3 north until it intersects with route 2; continue on route 2 east  through Gorham until it intersects with route 16; take 16 south until it intersects with route 302 west;  go through the mountains on 302 until it intersects with route 3; take route 3 south, which becomes 93 south, until it intersects with 112 east (Loon Mt. area); go through the mountains on 112 until it intersects with 16 (below Conway); take 16 to Spaulding Turnpike to 95 and home.  About 400 miles.

If you hit it right, the way up on route 93 will be spectacularly beautiful, especially, north of Concord.  Vast panoramas of yellows, reds, browns and greens will assault your eyes.  The same is true from Gorham to route 302.  Within the mountains, 302 will tempt you to stop and view, more than 112 will, but 112 is a more dramatic drive than the other, filled with steep ups and downs. 

The journey home is not as impressive, but it ain't chopped liver.

I feel better after this visual feast.  Can't tell you why.  But it's a fact.  When I get home I usually end up playing the organ and singing a few tunes.  Somehow the two activities seem to go together.  Don't know why.  Do you?"