Down Autumn Roads

David finally brought himself to finish Cafe Berlin, by Harold Nebenzal, and raved about it so much that now I'm reading it, but that's only at bedtime. This morning the sunshine called us to the open road. Down through Leland and past Little Traverse Lake to Glen Arbor for breakfast at Art's Tavern, then on through Sleeping Bear country, with a winding detour off the highway. Platte River Plains country.





Past a couple of lovely little hidden lakes and into the woods, where oak trees along the trails held leaves the color of root beer candy drops, sun coming lighting them up from the inside as if they were made of stained glass. The roads were almost empty. Astonishing! "Color's pretty much finished" was an opinion I heard from one man yesterday. Oh? There are stretches where trees are bare but many other long stretches of woods are still lemon yellow and burnt sienna, with occasional highlights of red. Trying not to miss a shred of this day, I searched at the same time for an analogy, something more specific than bright vs. quiet, and here's what I came up with:

Imagine a party, with lots of laughter and loud music, even a live band, everyone struttin' their stuff and workin' the room and ridin' the wave! It's a great party. Later on the band packs up and leaves, and most of the crowd disperses, but a few people stay on, and the people who are left sit around on the floor, and one of them picks up a guitar, and they lean their heads on one another's shoulders. Softer music, gentler laughter, contented sighs. The difference is something like that.

October is Halloween. November is Thanksgiving.