Falling Leaves

We were again in the northeast for the fall season and the changing of the leaves, something we don’t see much in Florida. We started out on September First and saw some sumac bushes starting to change to red in South Carolina and have slowly added more colors. I was wondering how the hot summer temps all parts of the country experienced this year would affect the colors and Josh’s uncle Brooks (in Maryland) says that he sees a lot of trees just turning almost straight to brown and dropping leaves early. But luckily for me, by the time we got to northern Pennsylvania and western New York there was still leaves to be enjoyed.

Also, part of Fall in the North comes the cloudy, dreary, rainy weather. We had rainy or overcast days for weeks on end so didn’t get the shots of the whole hillsides ablaze with color. Still, I enjoyed the crisp fall air and the roadside pumpkin patches. About the middle of October, we had a full-sun day while driving and we had a hard time seeing with the sun in our eyes.

The rain also brings down the leaves and was fun to see how many fell overnight and our campsite slowly disappearing under leaves. There were times Josh and I would look at each other and wonder if that is rain or falling leaves we hear on the roof. It got so that you couldn’t see the other campsite driveways, they were so covered. That happened to us last year as we tried to get into a new campsite so Josh just parked the trailer where he thought it should be.

At Paint Creek State Park in Ohio I realized I needed to put a different color scarf on Barnie, he was blending in to the leaves he was laying on with his burnt orange scarf and his light brown fur. His ball kept getting lost too, it is orange and covered with leaves.

At the Ohio stop I was sitting outside by the fire while Josh and Barnie were walking and heard something falling through the trees at edge of our site then THUD on the ground. Sounded like you wouldn’t want to be hit by that! It was some sort of tree nut. They look like small apples but have a softer skin and when you see them broken on the ground, they have many small seeds inside. The squirrels love them, you often see a squirrel with one in his mouth that is almost as big as his head.

With so many of the leaves off the trees we get a better view from our camp. In Ohio, our site was higher up from the lake, but we were able to just see it without the leaves. Also, at Natural Tunnel State Park in Virginia we could see an old, half falling down barn in a field above us. We are here for 5 days at Halloween so appropriate that we can see, from our site, down an incline to a solitary grave with a cross and wreath. Try not to think about that at night as we sit outside by the fire.

Hopefully we will still have colors to see for a few more weeks as we are in Tennessee and northern Georgia, still close to the edge of the Appalachian Mountains. Still forecast to have fall temps next week, after we get through tonight’s forecast of freezing temps of mid to upper 20’s. (Note we’re actually in Georgia as this is published; we didn’t have Internet access until now.)