ahh, fall mornings at 7,000 feet

Fall has been descending on Wayne County in fits and starts this year. The colors appeared on the aspen trees up on the mountain—ooh, aah. Very pretty, of course. But one could still view them while hiking in shorts and a tank top. Nighttime temps dropped a bit, of course, but days were still gorgeous. Then we had our wild winter storm a week and a half ago, in which the wind went crazy as it is wont to do here, it snowed, the clouds scudded through the unforgiving sky, and the wind made that eerie, hair-raising moaning sound when it forced its way through the cracks around one's doors and windows.

Then the temps shot right back up, the wind left, I lounged by the river in shorts in a tank top and was rendered almost comatose by the drowsing sunlight. The sky was crystalline blue, the rocks were glowing red, the air was blessedly still. Loved it.

Then yesterday the freaking wind again. I'm very serious about the WC wind (locals sometimes call it Wind County). It can be horrendous, ridiculous, a howling fiend that knocks over enormous trash cans, rips your car door out of your hands when you open it, and brings flashing images of Kansas and Toto and a little girl in a blue checked dress on her way to the land of those kind of creepy munchkins. I stayed inside.

This morning, my little atomic radio clock read 65.8 degrees F at about 8am. When I stepped outside the house, it definitely felt quite a bit chillier. (Although, thank goodness, no wind.) So I put my trusty little clock outside and left it for about a half hour or so. When I returned to check, it read 35.8 degrees F.

I quickly retreated indoors again. Hooray for warm houses and coffee! Pippin quite agrees, as he is flopped out on his favorite blue chair right now:



Aahh, fall. I must say that 35.8 degrees outside bodes well for my writing this morning. That said, I'm back to it.

ahh, fall mornings at 7,000 feet