New England Foliage Blog →
Fall Foliage back road trips and Vermont country stores
Back road books and finding country stores
by Jeff "Foliage" Folger
Stop in and get a homemade sandwich and some fresh soup and ask Karen or Mark about places to find foliage.
Granby General store in Granby VT
Missing your plate? look in Granby VT...
Now that is a rooster...!
Red against gold in Atkinson NH
Greetings Fall Foliage Peepers
I got an email the other day from a family of German leaf peepers and they have a great itinerary but they asked me a stumper, yes I can be stumped. They want to stop at a bunch of small country stores! Now you may ask how that could be a stumper? Well unless you live near one can you tell me exactly (street address for directions) where 5 or more are? In my travels I stop at them all the time whether it's for a sandwich or a cup of coffee or the call of nature that follows 3-4 cups of coffee. :-) I started looking for a good link to a general listing of stores and I turned up a list for the Alliance of Independent Country Stores (www.vaics.org) They also have a couple of maps on the website with links to most of the stores and one has a map with detailed tours that take you past many of them. I haven't seen any links to stores in other New England states but I'll keep looking.
Helpful Books
I have many back issues of various magazines and one or two books that I'll pick up in June or July for inspiration. One such book is Autumn Rambles of New England. The book has detailed route with notes on how to find the roads, towns, village greens and of course the local general store. The Tougias brothers detail these trips together. Michael writing and Mark adds in his artwork which is lovely fall representations at its best. I've not yet covered all the routes in there but I'm slowly working my way through them.
Another way to stay up on the fall foliage and activities in these parts is by listening to 980 WCAP talk radio on Thursday mornings at 11:10AM EST on your AM dial. I'll be talking with the hosts about the upcoming fall foliage season. If you don't live in the area, you can listen on their website www.980wcap.com and catch it streaming on your computer.
Check my Blog several times per week as I start to ramp up for the foliage season with reports all week long. The Yankee foliage forum is a great place to get updates or over on the Yankee foliage Facebook fan page
Don't forget to login on the forum Jeff's contest thread is open to guesses to figure out my total mileage this season and to win either a boxed card set of my foliage series or a HD DVD fall video. (I didn't make it; I just purchased it on Amazon)
Yankee's Foliage Fan page on Facebook and Yankee on Twitter.
Autumn is here (Next week, anyways) and I hope to hear from you throughout the rest of the fall, if you have any questions please feel free to ask them here in the comments section or in the foliage forum or in the Yankee?s Foliage Fan page on Facebook and I and the other folks will do their best to answer them. Or you can email me at jeff.foliage@gmail.com.
Reader Comments
Comment from Donna Frost on September 23, 2009
Country stores is a tough question. Vermont Country Store is not really the roadside country store they might have in mind. It is, however, a popular stop. In NH, at exit 16 Quality Cash Market in East Concord is popular for their meats and it's a pretty good place to get coffee, etc. I haven't even been the the Hopkinton NH Cracker Barrel since it came under new ownership. It's used to be more of a small grocery back in the day when people didn't want or couldn't travel to Concord to do grocery shopping. The store in Canterbury NH is more like the traditional town meeting place (gossip central) and I think it is now cooperatively run. Of course, that place in Woodstock VT that has all the luxury food items at the front of the store and some real hardware depts in back, is definitely worth a stop.
Comment from Jeff Folger on September 23, 2009
Well that is why I posted the link that will take them through all sorts of general stores.. I don't know which will be good tourist stops or just good places for a sandwich and coffee... I'd rather find ones that are where the locals go since that brings the local flavor to the exploration. :-)
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