By Catherine Bahn
For the last decade I’ve been living in what feels like a black and white film. At my home in Holland, the consistently rainy and cloudy weather dampens the colors of the natural world—creating an environment dominated by black, white, and shades of grey. I chose to live here because I am a freelance musician, and this is the place to be for my variety of music. Most of my time in Europe I am busy teaching and playing classical music of the 17th Century. I grew up in New York City, and my childhood memories of autumn remain vivid against the dreary climate of Holland. I recall the color of the changing foliage: chestnut or cider brown, cranberry or cayenne red, pumpkin orange, collard greens, and yellow mustard. So, on my last weekend of my annual visit to the new world, my boyfriend Antonio and I decided to visit my sister, Leslie, and her husband, Scott, in the Central Champlain Valley. Antonio, who is from Madrid, Spain, had recently started his musical studies at Juilliard in New York, and had not yet made it out of the city. So there were plenty of reasons to make the trip north.
We were not the only folks wanting to visit Upstate New York on the second weekend in October. The trains to Westport were sold out. We may have actually chosen the busiest day of the year. This was when we learned the term “Leaf Peeping.” Not to be deterred, we found an inexpensive bus out of Chinatown to Albany. Leslie and Scott picked us up that evening and we drove up the Northway in the dark, happily chatting and drinking apple cider.
Antonio and I woke up early on Saturday to have the New England dream scene dropped right in front of us. We were staying on the shores of Lake Champlain in a country style house with a pale blue barn, a large garden, chickens, a hammock, a giant swing set, and even a tree house—and the sun was shining! The plan that day was to take advantage of the fair weather and to do a hike with a good view. As musicians tend to travel on a shoestring, we had to borrow the necessary gear from the Lost and Found stash at Camp Dudley, where Scott runs the Outdoors Department. We got our hands on some well broken in hiking boots from teenage boys, packs, and water bottles. In my sister’s running outfit I was dressed in all black like a ninja minus the stinky campers’ boots on my feet, and was ready to hike up Coon Mountain.
The walk started out dreamily, hiking with family, the crisp fresh air with mushroom undertones, the warm sun, echoes of rustling Quebecois, and the leaves crackling under my feet. The dream phased into reality as the heat of the day combined with the incline of the trail ahead. At the top at last, behold, the lake and the curvaceous magic carpet of autumn leaves shined in full regalia in front of us. This view was truly remarkable and well worth the effort. The beauty in front of us mixed with the nostalgia of color from years past, creating a truly magical moment.
The next morning we were greeted to more fine autumn weather, and we went down to Lake Champlain for a paddle. On this morning I had my energy back, and was happy to canoe. We paddled south along the lakeshore. While the rest of my party had decided to do a side hike to look at a waterfall, I stayed in the canoe and gazed at the fallen trees that were knocked out by Hurricane Irene in September. It was hard to imagine the severity of the storm on such a lovely morning. I looked at landslides and wreckage, more and more downed trees, and my heart went out to those affected here in the North Country.
Hungry, and in need of stocking up supplies for the afternoon train back to NYC, we drove to a local bakery and coffee house in Wadhams called Dogwood Bread Company. At Dogwood, there was a small crowd of people in front of a cart. Salads from local CSA Juniper Hills Farm, delicious coffee and amazing chocolate cookies. But whom on Earth do we pay for this stuff? There was actually a box in place of the missing proprietor, who no doubt was off doing his or her own version of leaf peeping. An honor system? Antonio and I marveled in disbelief at the cart full of food, and the bin with money. In our lives in Barcelona and The Hague, the cart and all the contents would have been long gone. Suddenly, I heard Antonio speaking to someone. In the short five weeks he had been in New York, there he was chatting to someone he knew, one of his yoga teachers from the Brooklyn studio! The world suddenly seemed so small and honest. Imagine the scene: two classical musicians, one from Spain, the other a first generation American with parents from Korea who lives in Holland, talking to a yoga teacher in tiny Wadhams, NY, at a café with yummier food than almost anywhere back home.
Had we known that the Amtrak would be over an hour late, we could have stayed to chat a little longer. The pace, hospitality, and charm of this wonderful part of the world had rubbed off on us. The Westport train station is old and quaint and waiting there seemed to cap off our visit to the Champlain Valley. I had gotten some color back on my sun deprived skin, and my re-awakened past had reunited with the present moment.
tags: leaf peeping, Coon Mountain, canoeing, Dogwood Bakery, Camp Dudley
