Even as an adult, sometimes you need a week with your parents.

This year, my parents and I planned a week-long trip in New England for the fall. All three of us first experienced a New England Fall in 2004, and were enchanted. They haven't been able to experience it in full since, so we set our home base in the lakes region of New Hampshire (Laconia) and drove all across the region, even to Maine. One morning, we took a seaplane ride—definitely a highlight. The leaves were a bit delayed in their peak color this year, so the whole week was full of anticipation of change, with our eyes peering into every grove and upon every mountaintop. New England is serene. I grew up as a girl in Colorado, whose majesty speaks to me; became a young adult in the hills of California, whose scenery was intoxicating and invigorating; and now reside as an adult in New York, where the east coast woos me. I've always loved trees that overtake and define landscapes, how they derive from water and ground to stretch and bend...and deciduous trees speak to my soul of the inevitability of change and process. 

It was my parents who developed my love of nature and adventuring—constantly taking my brother and me on hikes and trips—and it was a joy to show them our region, with all its quaintness and richness of abundant life. A week for the memory books, indeed.

You made it to the end! Congratulations. If you wish to see more, see this page from a day trip to Connecticut a couple of weeks after this.