leaf-looker pictures for oulin

Because she doesn’t get to experience the rollercoaster of seasons like we do. And because, much to my surprise, our leaves are suddenly gorgeous. At least the ones that didn’t turn brown and fall off the trees are gorgeous. And after months of hot, dry, unseasonable, unlike-this-place weather (that I LOVED – you go, drought!!) it’s finally raining here. And raining. And raining. And raining some more.  I know, I know – we DO need it. And it’s not snow, which is good. It’s actually not even all that chilly – it’s 63 right now. We have plenty of mid-July days that are colder than this.

Of course, our weather has to be peculiar, even when it does finally start acting like late October. When I went out at lunch, it was raining, foggy, and the sun was shining. All at the same time. I had to dig out my sunglasses while fumbling with the lights and windshield wipers. No rainbows, though.

I drove up the Parkway to the Viaduct on Friday, which was a day very like today. The leaves are especially gorgeous up there – they always are, which is nice for the leaf-lookers.

Those rocks up there are the back of Grandfather Mountain.

I was SO carefully timing my shot to avoid the scads of traffic – and realized too late that this was a nifty old Model T.

This was so oddly NOT colorful that I thought I’d gotten the camera set on black and white somehow – but no, it’s just clouds moving in.

Okay, back to work.