And on the Eighth Day, God created a deluge so I would go home

Maine loves me, I can tell. The weather dawned fine and fair for the whole week of the Camden Plein Air Festival, any rain containing itself to evening or early morning hours. On Monday I awoke to the steady thrum of rain on the roof. It rained solidly for the fourteen hours it took to get back to Rochester.

There is no day so dismal for driving in the Northeast as Labor Day, since school traditionally starts the next morning and we are all desperate for our last gasp of fun. After crawling across the Sheepscot River bridge and inching along 295 toward Portland, we decided to strike off to the west and try to intersect with NH Route 101 to head cross-lots to Bennington, VT. Ultimately, we did, but it was a very slow drive, since apparently the half of New England that wasn’t fuming on US 95 had decided to join us. Still, it was beautiful.

When I see the early soft maples in the mountains starting to turn red, I am reminded of a woodsman who vacationed at the Irondequoit Inn this time of year. His name is John Porter, and he is a master at tree identification. There is no color like that color of the soft maples in swampy mountain lands. The painting, above, is of an area dammed by beavers in Speculator, but it could also have been any road between Bennington and Keene, where the earliest hints of color are appearing in the soft maples.

I’ll be back in Maine in three weeks. By then, the Bennington-Keene-Manchester route will be in full early-autumn color. Perhaps it will be the route I should take. And by then, I will be able to get a table at Fernald’s Country Store or the Bagel Café in Camden. There is no season that isn’t good in Maine.

My upcoming workshop students need supply lists. Check here:

·         Watercolor

·         Pastels

·         Oils