Vermont in the Fall

I'm adding a little color to a snowy winter by going back to our roadtrip in October 2011.  The photos below were taken on October 11th in West Bennington, Vermont.  The River is the Walloomsac River.

The Henry Covered Bridge crosses the river and is 127 feet long and built with a town lattice truss.  It was built around 1840 and rebuilt in 1989.  Unfortunately the contractor replaced all the old Vermont spruce and oak wood with southern pine and ash.  Nonetheless, it's still a beautiful bridge.

Of course, with such a picturesque scene I had to play just a little.

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I'm linking up with Tricia's Watery Wednesday II.

Two For One

We found this beautiful barn in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on a back road. 

One of the things we like to do when we are traveling is search out covered bridges and Pennsylvania has a good number of them.  Most covered bridges are on the back roads and we see some lovely country that we wouldn't otherwise see.  Finding this bridge, Jackson's Mill Bridge, revealed a beautiful farm right across it.   

The bridge was built in 1878 and spans Octoraro Creek.  It was damaged by a flood in 1984 and has been rebuilt.  

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Find more old barns at Tricia's Barn Charm!

Detour

We were on the road again today, leaving Ellsworth under cloudy skies and heading north, with our destination Presque Isle.  After a very windy day yesterday, many trees have already shed their leaves, but there was still a good deal of color along the road.

We stopped for lunch at Houlton, and then stopped at the Visitor's Center.  The lady there was very helpful, and suggested something that she thought we might like to do.  It sounded like a good idea, so off we went.

Our detour took us a few miles to the US/Canada border and in to New Brunswick, Canada.  As we like to do, we took the scenic route.

Our destination.....

.....Hartland, which boosts the longest covered bridge in the world at 1,282 feet.

The bridge was constructed by the Hartland Bridge Company, which was formed by citizens on both sides of the St. Johns River who were tired of waiting for the government to build a bridge.  It was originally thought the bridge would be built using eight steel spans and would cost $70-80,000.  Instead the bridge was built out of cedar spruce and hard pine and local businessmen were used, bringing the cost down to $27,945. It was officially opened July 4, 1901.  The bridge was purchased by the provincial government in 1906.  Two spans of the bridge were taken out by river ice in April of 1920, and the government made major repairs and covered the bridge in 1922.  The side walkway was added in 1945.  Lights were installed on the bridge, and during the winter snow was hauled  and placed on the floor of the bridge so sleds could easily travel on it.

We crossed the bridge and continued driving along the other side of the river.

Along the way we saw a lovely rainbow.

We crossed the border back in to the US and on to Presque Isle.  As we drove up to the hotel we saw our second rainbow of the day.

I think that must be a good omen!