For the love of Fall, halfway up, and down...... that hill!

I may have been born in Missouri but I grew up in South Florida. The scuba diving was great there, but when you get down to the brass tacks, Florida just does not participate in Fall or hills either. But when I turned 17, I went off to the CIA (Not that CIA, the Colorado Institute of Art in Denver). There I was initiated in the lovely experience of learning to drive a 3speed Vega, (guess I’m showing my advanced age now) Anyhoo, back to the Vega - There I was initiated in the lovely experience of learning to drive a 3 speed Vega up gargantuan hills in downtown Denver traffic. My previous experience with driving up a hill in stop and go traffic revolved around sitting in a vehicle halfway up a bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway waiting for a boat to pass under the bridge. Not to mention that the vehicle was a Datsun (Here I go showing my age again) with a automatic transmission.

  But back to the gargantuan hill and the Vega (are you confused yet?) The two things that I remember most of that experience were, the Chinese fire drills that we had every morning, when stopped at the red light halfway up that hill. I would inevitably pop the clutch and be to petrified to restart the car and get it up the hill without hitting the car in back of me. I will say this, Come on people I had Florida plates, you should have realized no hills and stopped at least 25 car lengths behind me so I could get up that hill ☻.


The second thing I remember about that hill and the reason I’m writing this post. Is the day I drove down that hill and fell in love with Autumn. I’m not kidding, the exact moment I fell in love with fall was a crisp sunny afternoon with a hint of wood smoke in the air. I was driving down a tree lined Denver street in a Vega. The traffic stopped, a slight puff of wind sent these gorgeous red and yellow leaves floating across my windshield. And it hit me, I took a deep breath in, looked at the beauty around me and promptly popped the clutch and hit the car in front of me. But I was Hooked on Fall from then on.

I love this time of year. We’ve had our first fire in the woodstove, the top of my maple tree is beginning to redden, And this weekend were expecting our first frost. Happy Autumn