Some of you may remember last month’s blog where I discussed the insufferable heat wave we were experiencing in late September. (https://writerswhokill.blogspot.com/2019/09/its-hot-yall-by-nancy-eady.html). The heat wave continued through the middle of this month, but it has finally broken and we have reached fall.
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| Oak Mountain State Park |
Fall is one of my favorite seasons in Alabama. The leaves in middle through north Alabama do change, but not at all once. In the Northeast, fall causes a brilliant explosion of color that lasts for a couple of weeks, and then is gone. Down here, the trees transition more gently, hues of green slowly transitioning to reds, oranges and yellows. The fall color lasts longer, too. We will still have patches of trees waving with color in November, and it will be December before most of the trees are bare.
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| Oak Mountain State Park |
This
morning, another fall phenomenon appeared – morning fog. I like the mystery fog
brings to the otherwise normal routine of driving to work. The mist swirls in
front of my car, sometimes clearing to let me see several car lengths ahead,
sometime closing in to make me feel like an explorer faring forth into an
unknown void. Then, as the sun comes up, the fog slowly lifts until the way in
front is clear. If I’m lucky, I’ll hit the bridge over the lake I cross every
day just in time to be able to see the fog lifting off of the water, another
mysterious sight.
When
my daughter was little, I would tell her a story about the fog – the fog was
made of confused clouds who came to rest on the earth rather than float in the sky,
and as Mr. Sun rose, he reminded the clouds where they were supposed to be. She
loved that story, as well as the one about Ms. Moon coming out in the daytime
to talk to Mr. Sun, whenever it was daytime but the moon could still be seen. Looking
back, Mr. Sun was doing a lot of talking!
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| Oak Mountain State Park |
Here on the Outer Banks, we don't really have fall. There are few trees here that change color. It is only the falling temperatures in the evening that gives suspicion to the changing seasons. By December, winter will set in. I miss the changing color of the leaves, but I don't miss the leaf mold!
ReplyDeleteYou're a brave soul!
ReplyDeleteI hated driving to work in the fog (I'm retired now.) I could barely see the front end of my car. Older cars used to have flog lights (my current one doesn't; I do wonder why) which shone down on the surface of the road. When the road has a white line along the edge, I could follow that, very slowly, hoping nothing was on the road ahead, since I wouldn't know it until I hit it. Back roads didn't even have that, so I'd have to follow the edge of the gravel or blacktop, which was very had to pick out from the weeds at the side. Sometimes there would be a car ahead of me, and I would stay as far back as I could and still see their tail lights. I wanted enough time to react if the driver of that car did something unexpected. I was especially careful after the time I almost followed the car ahead into a ditch.