Wherein the Pending Autumn is Pondered.

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Greetings Dear Reader,

One hopes you are well and enjoying rich experiences where possible.  Here we’re minutes before the foliage-change, thanks to the climatic trend toward moistening thanks to AGC.  Fall riding is such an expression of optimism.  We all hope it’s going to a winter like that one where we rode around in Jan|Feb|Mar.  (Here, it was 2011 IIRC.)  A better rider/writer than I mentioned that riding trips started in September are the acts of highest optimism. One can only be certain the weather will be different when it’s time for the return trip.

This summer we had a wonderful ride to Ely, MN which requires a lot of two-lanes through state and national forests.  It might be fun to try another but AFTER the peak color so as to avoid the looky-louies.  I drove through Vermont after fall, to help deliver the offspring to college and even denuded of leaves, it’s obvious the resorts make all their money in a very short period.  Locals told us that those wonderful winding roads were virtually solid during daylight hours throughout the annual color change.  Autumn is really something.

It’s funny that spring’s apex is so subtly arrived at: there’s a mist of green that is barely discernible then all of a sudden you realize the sky is disappearing every day.  We noted the day that we could no longer see a distant radio tower’s lights.  I’m going to make a point of noting the first evening it reappears.

I arrived in Chicago in September, decades and a daughter ago, my first time in the city and my first occasion living in a Real Big City™.  Also a city who’s built inhabitants regularly featured in my architecture text books.  Fall is the season for Modern Architecture, since it’s so much easier to render the skeletal trees.  (Back before Sketchup.)  Even though the views from inside their picture windows would be more interesting in verdancy, the exterior elevation is somehow perfect in the spiked clouds of an autumn sky.  The soft lighting hides problematic shadows (or their overheating lack during the summer).  Spring may be for love, Summer for passion, but fall is for contemplation.

This is also the time when photophiles get their color-temp swings back in.  In winter, we can get the dawn-change before lunch, and the sunset change seemingly right after.  Fall, though, the daily shift is just coming back from summer vacation.  Here in the land of Magic Hours, we kinda forget sunrise (haven’t seen it in weeks) and sunset’s so slow you mostly notice it when you need a flashlight to see where to pick up the dog’s poop. But fall is the transition, “Here it comes again.”  In the winter, the ground will become a giant reflector and we’ll notice every degree Kelvin of the sunrise/set’s progress.  But fall let’s us get back in shape for observing, for enjoying that particular shade of pinkish blue, or the orange highlights (west) offset by the fierce purpling of the sky (east.)

There’s the fashions change.  Every woman I know is so excited to get back to their cool boots and some new jeans they’ve been waiting to sport.  Plus scarves, which really help manage the gender-disparity in thermostat settings.  I can’t say I change much in this area: same 600+ Dernier nylon I always wear.  There’s maybe a week where I can wear my Draggin Jeans and Bohn armor.  I’ve already learned that I probably need a heated vest and gloves.  The vest, because the new Roadcrafter R3 is so stiff and tight that there’s barely any room for fleecy magic.  The gloves because covering the brake is my new magic therapy: no more back pain!!!  By resting 2 fingers on the lever, my left shoulder blade no longer lights on fire and blows off.  Plus brake coverage.  Thanks to a riding coach watching me round the track, he said “try this, you may loosen up.”

Anyway, it’s fall here in the high latitudes.  For those of you who don’t experience much of the tilt (the Magic Minute zones), I hope no big storms are bound your way.  For those for whom the tilt is switching from “away” to “towards,” I hope your spring is magnificent.  Enjoy the subtle stuff amidst the roaring awakening all around you.