Peak leaf-peeping season is approaching for Bennington, Vermont.  We rode up scenic Route 2 and stopped at a designated peeping spot somewhere outside Bennington.

The weather held out on Sunday but gave way to rain and fog on Monday.  Either way, the dramatic landscapes made for some decent photos -- even if some were from the window of the car.

If you're ever in Shaftsbury, I can recommend the Serenity Motel;  they have cable!

If I'm ever back in Bennington, I'd like to try "Bingo for AIDS".  It sounds like an excellent idea.

Because I was a good boy, we went to Pizza Hut for dinner.  It was just like home cooking.

We made faces at each other to distract ourselves from the oversized, boisterous families causing a commotion in the other booths.

You probably didn't know that Bennington has the tallest structure in Vermont, The Bennington Battle Monument.  Also, the elevator operator in the monument has the greatest narration voice in the world, formed through years of heavy smoking.

The Bennington Museum features the most offensive statue I've seen in a while.  It's cryptically named "The Spirit of America."  I'll never know what other offensive artifacts are contained therein because we didn't bother paying the admission fee.

Robert Frost is buried in Bennington and has a house in Shaftsbury, proving that we just can't get away from that guy.  He's got a franchise in every New England town.

Whenever I've been down RT 2, I've thought about checking out Turners Falls.  This time, we made a brief stop in the economically depressed village of Montague. 

After a few photos and a couple iced teas, we hit the road back home, away from bucolic, impoverished western Massachusetts.