Maine's autumn, Day 2 | Grand Lake Stream and Moosehorn wildlife refuge

On Day 2 of my Maine vacation - after a morning visit to talk journalism with a class at Princeton Elementary School, which I attended as a child - my father and I drove to the nearby fishing-tourism town of Grand Lake Stream. This dirt road was just off the main route into town.

A close-up of some of the maple leaves during the first stop of the afternoon near Grand Lake Stream.

Grand Lake Stream is a town of only 150 people, but during the warmer months, people - many from more populous parts of southern New England - come in, occupy a cabin and take advantage of West Grand Lake's superior boating and canoeing conditions and go fishing in the various lakes, streams and rivers in the region.

Grand Lake Stream is renowned as a haven for fly fishermen. Red Sox great Ted Williams was a regular. Visitors often have luck hooking salmon in the stream, just below where the dam controls the flow of West Grand Lake.

A Maine guide nets a landlocked salmon for his customer.

A small canal paralleling the stream was filled with fallen leaves. My father and I stood on a small concrete dam in order to get shots over the middle of the canal.

There isn't much fall foliage in this scene, just some rapids farther downstream from where the above photos were taken.

On the road out of Grand Lake Stream, I asked my father to pull to the side of the road so I could take a photo of the deer-crossing sign. If I didn't see a deer, I at least wanted to photograph something indicating that there are supposed to be deer in the area.

Twenty miles to the south at the Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge in Calais, there wasn't much wildlife, just many foliage scenes along a road that loops through the refuge.

The leaves were like gold coins scattered across the wilderness floor.

At this point, while I was trying to shoot the maple leaves with the sun filtering through the trees, I heard a horn being honked repeatedly. Turns out that it was father, from whom I separated myself while taking photos. He thought I had gotten lost in the woods or had fallen and hit my head.

Many of the maple trees were bare or in their late-stage red color.

A close-up of a maple leaf.

After stopping to shoot a scene in front of the car, I turned around and saw the clouds behind me.

Late Tuesday was the clearest weather I saw during my entire stay. Unfortunately, the foliage on this lake in the refuge wasn't nearly as brilliant as what I photographed a day earlier in Lincoln.

The good thing about traipsing through the woods or along the shore of a small Maine lake such as this one is that the reptiles I have to be on the lookout for in Florida aren't present. No alligators to chomp off your feet. No lizards to climb into your boots.

Many of the maples were ahead of their hardwood counterparts in the leaf-dropping department.