John, I don't think your first tree is Sugar Maple. The bark is wrong, and the leaves don't appear to match to me. Perhaps it is a Striped Maple Acer pensylvanicum. Having seen it yourself, you will be a far better judge. Crimson King is a Norway Maple. The leaves of Norway Maple are very close to Sugar Maple in shape. IIRC Sugar Maples have rounded points, while Norway has sharper points. Not certain, but your second tree looks like Black Locust Robinia pseudoacacia to me. There were several 60'+ with 18"-24" diameter trunks around the house I grew up in. Best I can tell, the bark and leaves look right. Strangely these large Black Locust didn't seem to produce thorns like the smaller ones do. At least that was my experience with frequent barefoot summer forays into the yard and elsewhere. ;-) Thanks for the other pictures. These are most welcome for those of us not so lucky. Arktrees

Hey, I have Lupine sprouts too! They were sown back in December, and the containers just emerged from under a snow pile. These are hardy little buggers. V1 and Betty, I also just sowed Lupine seeds this past weekend, but soaked them before sowing. I boiled some water, poured it over the seeds, and soaked them in it for 24 hours. The water will cool down, which is okay. You can also nick the seed coat, rub them with coarse sandpaper, or cold stratify in the fridge. All of these techniques supposedly allow the seed coat to soften faster, and the embryo inside can swell and break through sooner. We'll see if it works!

Do the leaves with the three leaflets belong to the same plant? If not compare with Hudsonia ericoides. I am not too familiar with alpine plants so that would be my only guess. Here is a link that might be useful: Hudsonia ericoides

Definitely go. That's a long drive, but if you take the time to make some stops along the way, you can make a really terrific vacay out of it. I haven't been in a long long time, but it's not crazy busy like some of the other national parks. What makes it stunning is the number of environments you see in such a compact area... woods full of fir trees, granite topped mountains, Maine's rocky coastline, lakes, ponds, bays, sand beach...and of course even the McDonald's sell lobster rolls. (Of course what always cracked me up was, when we were in Maine, we saw signs in restaurants that said "fresh pacific salmon" and signs in Seattle that said "fresh maine lobster". Go figure!) I'm sure you'll get lots of input on things to see and do along the way if you let us know where you might want to stop and for how long. EG, you can stop in the Brandywine River Valley area, that's one of my favorite places to visit...Longwood Gardens, Winterthur, Hagley Museum, Brandywine River Museum, Nemours mansion. You can stop in Boston of course too...