They come to Hanover every fall from across the nation and overseas, descending upon the Green from tour buses with camera in hand.
They are the leaf peepers.
"I got a great shot of Baker Tower," said Mary Craig of California. She stood at the center of the Green, angling her camera to capture the tower, the trees, and the sky in one picture perfect shot.
Craig and her husband have planned this nine-day trip to the East Coast since last spring. They started in Boston with Globus Tours and stopped in Niagara Falls, N.Y., Vermont and Maine.
"We wanted to see the fall colors," Craig said. "We always like to stop and see the colleges and see where our young people are being educated." The Craigs have several grandchildren and great-grandchildren..
Most tours use Hanover as a stopover for lunch. Tourists had one to two hours to wander around campus, take in the leaves, and hit the Main street shops.
"I love the Green," commented Julie Abercronbie from South Carolina, bundled in a heavy jacket, long pants, and baseball hat. "It is right in the midst of everything."
"It's been a beautiful trip," said Harry Petrie of Washington state as he emerged from Murphy's Tavern. "I like this campus too. It sure is something."
Petrie and his wife traveled East for the "sole purpose of viewing leaves."
Though the peak fall colors are coming late this year, most leaf peepers were not disappointed.
Ed and Peggy Bagnani of San Francisco said the trip was a little early, but still wonderful.
"The colors up here are more vibrant than down in Boston," Bagnani explained. They stood outside the Hanover Co-op peering through the window.
"My wife wants to buy a sweat shirt," said Bagnani.
Abercronbie was not disappointed either.
"I hear the colors are two weeks behind," she said, "but we have been pretty lucky where we have been. It is gorgeous in Vermont."
But professional leaf peepers are not as pleased with this year's fall foliage.
Barbara Keene, a tour guide for Tourco, also said that there are brighter colors in Vermont.
"I am a little disappointed," Keene said, "The colors are poor this year."
Keene said next year's business could be hurt by this season's poor show.
Henry Loude of Mayflower Tours said, "I've been up here when it was wall to wall beautiful, but this year the colors seem dull and sparse."
He said the tourists, mostly an older crowd from the West Coast, were not disappointed with their tours or the stop in Hanover.
"They love the college town atmosphere," he said. "I've been telling them to be glad they didn't come here on a Saturday with a home game."
Ken Reeves of Accu Weather, Inc. said the colors have not peaked as early as in previous years because the weather was less extreme this year.
"From a weather standpoint, I think that trees haven't been stressed as much this year by a lack of rain or extreme cold or dryness," Reeves said. "The act of changing leaves is brought on by sunlight and hastened by these stresses."
