We started out day in awe of the ingenuity of man and ended it in awe of nature’s ingenuity!
You know of Silicon Valley, but have you heard of Precision Valley? Learning about Precision Valley is where we started our day.
In the 1700s, most people owned only one change of clothes, only one in fifty owned a clock, and very few had carriages but with the Civil War came the need to produce large quantities of weapons and interchangeable gun parts and thus, precision machining was born.
The Windsor-Springfield area of Vermont became the center of this technology and in the years following the Civil War, these precision tools (planers, lathes, mills, gage blocks, micrometers, etc.) were put to use making consumer goods like sewing machines, typewriters, bicycles, watches and later automobiles. In the 1800s and early 1900s this area was dubbed “Precision Valley”.
The American Precision Museum in Windsor is small but packed full of great information. As we learned about all of the innovation in the area we realized how many things we take for granted on a daily basis and how much we owe these early innovators!
American Precision Museum
There was this cool special exhibit of miniatures that we both took too many photos of. The video (below) was a better way to go.
Leaving the museum, we pushed northeast to experience as many of the fall colors as we could.
Speaking of…have you ever stopped to consider why the leaves turn colors in the fall?
Well, most of the year deciduous trees have green leaves because of the chlorophyll they use to absorb energy from sunlight during photosynthesis, which in turn feeds the trees. However, as the temperatures drop, the chlorophyll in the leaves breaks down, revealing the yellow and orange pigmented leaves that were simply masked by the green chlorophyll during warmer months. Talk about ingenuity?! You go, nature!
By late afternoon, it was time for a driving break. We stopped to hike Middle Sugarloaf Trail in the White Mountain National Forest of New Hampshire. As we reached the hilltop, the view took my breath away (and not just because of the uphill hike)! The valleys and hills beyond were tight-packed with colorful trees – a bouquet fit for a god. We sat for some time in silent wonder just taking it all in.
We both love places that remind us of how small our problems really are, how large our world is and how even larger our universe is. These kinds of places remind us to be grateful that we can have these experiences over whatever time we’re allotted. What a spectacular day!
