We left for our annual New England trip in early October.  The fall colours were not as good as we were hoping for although there were still some very pretty spots.  I seemed to remember that overall the colours were actually better once we arrived back in Canada.  We left Toronto  October 4th for  Rochester New York in order to check out the "Grand Canyon of the East".  Then we drove through Massachusetts on our way to Providence, Rhode Island where we had arranged to  pick up my sister at the local airport.   Wendy had flown in from Vancouver to spend the week travelling with us.  After leaving Rhode Island we drove up the coast to Portland, Maine.  Leaving Portland we drove to Burlington, Vermont with a stopover in  Manchester, New Hampshire.  We arrived back in Toronto on October 13th.

I have included a map so you can see where we were.

We arrived in Rochester  late afternoon and found a park close by to the hotel.  It was a beautiful warm fall afternoon.  We didn't actually drive into the downtown area since there was a lot of  construction in the area.  Rochester is now known for its medical and technological development.   The last time I was in Rochester was for a bridge tournament in the 80's.  We drove down on a Saturday night to play in a swiss team match on the Sunday morning.   Before we got to Rochester, the car's transmission died.   I don't remember where exactly but it was a very dark road with very few cars maybe 40 or 50 miles from Rochester.  Fortunately a state trooper came to our rescue and called a towing company who towed us to the nearest town.  On the way the  back of the car was hit by another car so once again we had to wait for the state trooper.  When he arrived he said "I was afraid it was going to be you two".   The story had a successful ending- we still got to play bridge on the Sunday and somehow the car made it back to Canada.  

Letchworth State Park is known as the "Grand Canyon of the East".   The park is in western New York, 40 miles south of Rochester.   The Genesee River runs through the gorge over three major waterfalls between the cliffs.  In some places these cliffs are as high as 600 feet.    We thought it was pretty spectacular although it really couldn't compete with the Grand Canyon. 

There were some pretty nice colours in the trees but not as much red as in other years.

We spent the morning driving through the park and doing a little walking.  We finally found the middle water falls.  

We hiked down and over to the higher falls.

This was one of the roads leading through the park.  

On the way to Rhode Island we drove through Massachusetts stopping at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley.  Mount Holyoke College is a very well known liberal arts college for women.  We have stopped here many times in past years  to walk in the beautiful grounds.   In 2011 Princeton Review  ranked the school first in the category of "best classroom experience",  ranked #3 for most politically active students  and ranked #7 as most beautiful campus.  You can attend this school for $53,596 a year  which includes room and board.  

We walked around the lower lake.  More than 300 acres of Mount Holyoke's 800 acre campus are a rural, undeveloped landscape of lakes, streams, forests, marsh and wetlands.   In the 1987 film Dirty Dancing (great movie), Frances ("Baby") plans to attend Mount Holyoke in the fall.  

Although very pretty colors, there was a lack of   red leaves this year everywhere we went.

After leaving Mount Holyoke, we continued our drive to Rhode Island taking some small highways and roads through Massachusetts.  We came across this pretty New England style house.

I liked this country road with the fallen leaves everywhere so we stopped to take pictures.