For New Year’s, we headed over to Vermont, to visit the BF’s family. They’re smack in the middle of the region that was badly effected by Hurricane Irene. Their town (Bennington), was only minorly effected – mostly by the temporary loss of the water supply coming out of the mountains, but the route we take to town passes through several towns that were very hard hit. It was a bit heartbreaking to drive through Wilmington and see so many of their businesses empty, some still boarded up and damaged.
The town of Woodford is right next to Bennington, and suffered as much as it did because it’s right at the base of the mountain, and water funneled right into it. There’s the shell of a stone house still standing next to the bridge that goes into town. (The worst of the damage is in places where you can’t really take photos, so I have nothing to show of that.)
We headed up Route 9, which goes through National Forest, so there are plenty of trailheads and the like to pull into. The river here is running higher than normal, and if you’ve been through here as often as we have, you can see where the water went that it normally doesn’t go. Definitely a sobering sight.
But, unrelated to the hurricane, something else was going on. These photos where taken on New Year’s Eve. Sure, there’s some ice:
But do you see how freakishly green everything is? Not to mention, we’re in the mountains here – everything should be under at least a foot of snow. This is definitely the warmest winter we’ve had in a while.