Pumpkin spice everything

Fall color at Bellagio Conservatory

It's definitely autumn - the days are getting shorter very quickly, although the temperature still gets up above 30 C (mid 80s F). By far the strangest thing about autumn here is not the disparity between the cool angled light and the heat of the sun. Nope, it's the pumpkin spice everything that grips the nation, providing a welcome orange change from red, blue, and the presidential election (mind you they even have an orange-frosted candidate this year).

Here, for your delectation, is a list of pumpkin spiced, pumpkin pie, or pumpkin products I have seen this month.

Goldengrove unleaving (Autumn aspens on 143)

We took a drive from Panguitch up the hill. The road climbs through farmland and forest, past a lake and alongside creeks, from about 6500 feet to nearly 10,000.


The autumn foliage was at its fleeting loveliest, the sky flawlessly blue ...

So here's some melancholic autumn poetry for you.

(It isn't magic all the time
It's only magic when I rhyme.
- Johnny Fartpants (attr.*))

"That time of year thou may'st in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang."
 - Shakespeare


“At no other time does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth; in a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the sea, bitter where it borders on taste, and more honeysweet where you feel it touching the first sounds. Containing depth within itself, darkness, something of the grave almost."
- Rilke

"Whoever has no house now will not build one anymore.
Whoever is alone now will remain so for a long time,
will stay up, read, write long letters,
and wander the avenues, up and down,
restlessly, while the leaves are blowing"
 - Rilke again


("Margaret, are you grieving
over goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves like the things of man, you
with your fresh thoughts care for, can you?"
- Hopkins

How things from high school stick with you! Shout out to the girls of De Valon House, Miss McLafferty, pre-photocopier duplicating machines of all kinds - can you smell the spirit? - and autumn nostalgia.)

Itinerary

Highway 143 Panguitch - Brian Head - Parowan

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*So Simon claims. Weirdly, this Viz character was written by Simon Donald. Coincidence? I Don't Think So. I'm onto you, SDM.