Goodbye summer, hello autumn.........literally. Yesterday was the last day of summer, and the temperature hit a high of 79 degrees. Skies were clear, sunshine reigned. Clouds roll in today, the first day of fall, and tomorrow rain will reign. The rest of the week the highs will be in the 60's. Are we ready for this? If we love fall colors--and we do--then today we celebrate the change of the season.
In the earliest years of our marriage my husband established a tradition, our 'Fall Colors Tour,' which means a drive in the mountains to fully appreciate the yellow, red and orange leaves at the most opportune time, usually in late October. In our first October living in Hawaii we went on the Hawaiian version of our Fall Colors Tour. We drove around our town of Kailua and took pictures of all the tropical flowers still in brilliant bloom to send to our friends back in Washington. (It is in that same vein that I rewrote "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" to become "I'm Dreaming of a White Sand Christmas.")
One of the few joys of moving to Virginia after our nine years in Hawaii was the return of a true Fall Colors Tour. For the first one we just stayed around Williamsburg and Yorktown, but the following year we were enthralled with the colors along the Blue Ridge Parkway and then down along the Shenandoah Valley. This has to rival the storied Vermont autumns.
The leaves are starting to turn colors here in Port Orchard, and pumpkins have turned up outside of the grocery stores. After fall, then Thanksgiving, then the bell ringers start showing up outside of the grocery stores, then we start to think snow, then Christmas, then the New Year, then Valentine's Day, then we can't wait for the first day of spring, then the flower baskets start showing up outside of the grocery stores, then we can't wait for the summer sunshine, and then......
Here are more pictures of autumn in Virginia:
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