Our plans for fall this year were originally to go on a cruise with my wife's sisters. That got cancelled, and we had to figure out what else we wanted to do instead. I have found that I really hate to miss the opportunity to shoot fall color somewhere nice.

A couple years ago when we were on the way to Acadia National Park in Maine, we thought that Vermont looked like it had nice opportunities, and I have also thought for some time that the Adirondack Mountains in New York state would be good, so we started laying out a plan to visit both areas.

I did some online research on Vermont, and found a book about photography in the Adirondacks to plan where we would go and to pick our locations for lodging. We ended up in Stowe, VT for 5 days, then 2 in Wilmington, NY and 2 in Eagle Bay, NY.

The Vermont part of the trip was cloudy, foggy, and rainy, so we did not get the views that we hoped for. We did find some good waterfalls and rapids to shoot. In New York, the weather improved, and there was sun to light up the foliage.

While waiting in line to go up the toll road to Whiteface Mountain near Wilmington, we wondered why everything was going so slow. I had plenty of time to walk up the line of cars to the toll booth to find out if something unusual was going on. As I approached the booth, a line of thick trees came to an end and for the first time I could see that there was a very pretty lake here with a great reflection of the colorful hills rising from the far bank. I ran back to the car to get my camera and capture this shot.