Wonderful Red Tavern Road

The Port Kent Hopkinton Turnpike was built in the early 1830s when this area was just being settled. Today it still exists, but only as a series of small local roads with varying names. When I depart my farm near Hopkinton, it is called the Port Kent Road. It soon becomes the Red Tavern Road. There is little other traffic and the scenery, as you can see here, is fantastic:

Most of the snow had melted on that late November day but the amber colored Birch leaves kept it all colorful:

The Red Tavern Road travels along the St. Regis River for quite a way, first at the same level (see yesterday's post) but then rising up into the hills above the St. Regis flood plain:

And because there is so much public land along the way, I easily found a place to stop and let the dogs out for a rest stop. I parked the car well off the road and we all began walking down a small lane which followed a waterway of some sort:

The younger dogs ran ahead while oldsters Wally and Winky lagged behind. My job was to keep them all more or less together:

But the youngsters do come running when called, and as you can see, they come running with great joy:

We all had a nice walk and the dogs especially loved to run and to sniff all the wild aromas:

Their great flurry of excitement soon passed and we then had a calmer, almost serene walk through the forest. You can see the waterway, almost like a canal, off to the left of this picture:

But my main goal was to drive home, so I got all six dogs moving towards our parked car:

Winky, being the crabby, obstinate little thing that he is, was (as usual) the last one to arrive at the car. I convinced him to hop back up into the rear of my hatchback and we continued on our way. I'll post more tomorrow: