Fall was one of the reasons I moved across the country. Texas doesn’t really have fall as a season. They have occasional days from October through Christmas that feel somewhat fall-like. The peak color starts hitting maybe around Thanksgiving, so fall overlaps with the holiday season. I always delayed starting to acknowledge the holiday season because I was trying to enjoy fall. I once joked that autumn in Texas reminded me of the Ray Bradbury short story “All Summer in a Day,” except it was all autumn in a day. The first day the high temperatures dropped below 80 (usually in October), you went on a frenzy of doing all the fall stuff — get a pumpkin spice latte, hot cocoa, or hot cider. Make soup and bread. Go on a walk in the woods. You had to cram all of your fall stuff into that day because you never knew if that would be all you’d get. There might be another fall-like day later on, closer to Thanksgiving. Or we’d get a freak freeze at Halloween and we wouldn’t get any fall color.

Every year when the September and October issues of home and garden magazines came out, I’d read them and sigh over the idea of having fall as a whole season instead of the occasional day and having it come in September and October instead of just before Christmas.

Well, I found that here. We started getting the kind of weather I associate with fall in mid-August, and that was when we got our first hints of fall color. We’re getting our peak fall color now, as October is coming to an end, though there are still a lot of trees that haven’t completely turned, so it will probably last at least a couple more weeks. I’ve been able to do all the fall things without having to cram them into one day.

I’ve gone walking in the woods, driven through the mountains to look at leaves, visited an apple orchard and a farm stand. I finally got the apple cider donuts I’ve always wanted to try. I’ve spent time sitting on my porch, drinking warm drinks. The trees around my back yard are just starting to turn, so unless we get a drastic freeze or severe wind storm in the next week or so, I’ve got at least another week of peak fall before the transition to winter starts. And then I’m going to Texas for Thanksgiving, so I’ll hit peak fall there.

The color around here has been spectacular. Here’s part of one of the city parks, and the trees were even brighter in person. They were practically neon.

The mountains were like a patchwork quilt. This is from the Blue Ridge Parkway, but the sun was at the wrong angle to really show the intensity of the color.

I’ve never seen such intense reds. Most of the “red” leaves I’ve seen before were more rust or burgundy, but they have scarlet leaves here.

There’s also some lovely gold, like this tree in the churchyard at the old church downtown (there are tombstones in that churchyard from before the American Revolution).

I just need some time at a firepit or campfire to complete the autumn experience. That’s a plan for when I get a real house. But there were a lot of campfires at the Frontier Culture museum event I went to last weekend, so I got to look at leaves while getting a nice aroma of wood smoke.

While I’ve joked that I want to find the place that has fall-like weather year-round, I think that part of the appeal of fall for me is how ephemeral it is. It only lasts a relatively short time, and it’s constantly changing. The color is different every day, as is the amount of leaves. You have to enjoy it while you can, and you revel in the change. I wouldn’t mind the fall-like weather through much of the year, with cool nights and days just warm enough to be outside comfortably, but you need some warmer weather in the summer to truly appreciate that first hint of a chill and to know that the change is happening.