The view along I-80: trees in transition.

For me, one of the first signs of fall is the display of spiced wafers at the grocery store. That stack of orange and black boxes means summer is over, and Halloween is just around the corner.

A more ancient sign of the season is the turning of the leaves, and there's no better way to see that than to take a drive across Pennsylvania, known as "Penn's Woods" for good reason.

My husband and I took a road trip to visit family last week (a more than momentary joy). Our route home brought us back into Pennsylvania from the west along I-80, a highway that rolls through the heart of the forests.

We had left home last Monday, still in summer season. As we headed north and west, Penn's Woods were mostly green, with only the occasional shimmer of orange. 

We arrived back home on Friday, the first official day of fall. What a difference a week made. Green still ruled, but those shimmers of orange had been joined by red, yellow and gold, signs of the fireworks to come.

Don't miss the show.

Proof that search engines have a sense of humor:

Today I was browsing through the library catalog for travel books. In the search field I typed "Ontario travel."

The catalog offered me many choices, but it also asked, "Did you mean 'interstellar travel'?"

Uh, not today, thanks. But maybe some star date in the future.

I find comfort in the eternal nature of nature.

Ten years ago today, I walked into the late summer night, 

looking for peace.

I listened to the world around me

and heard crickets singing their end-of-summer song.

I passed a family of four, which was soon to be a family of five:

father, mother, great with child, daughter, toddler son.

I thought of how normal they looked, 

and I thought of how so many families

would not feel "normal" for days, weeks, months, years to come,

if ever.

When I heard the crickets, I thought, tonight the crickets are singing in Central Park.

The natural world lives on.

  Night falls, the stars appear. 

Humans mourn but all around the earth tells us: 

Life goes on.

A time to weep; a time to mourn.

A time to remember, with love.

------

When I graduated from Penn State in 1979, one of my oldest and dearest friends gave me a copy of "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran.

Among his many beautiful words are these:

"The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain."

I have seen those words prove true in my own life. I pray the same for all who mourn and remember today.

There are times I just love typos.

Not that I enjoy misspelling words, but I do love how an inadvertent keystroke can take you in a whole different direction. Freudian slips of the fingers.

In an email yesterday, I wrote that I'm looking forward to a visit from my brother-in-law and his wife, and that I hoped we would "head to the shore."

Instead of "shore," I originally typed "shire," and instantly the land of hobbits flashed in my mind.

I smiled, and thought of how much I've enjoyed spending imaginary time in the Shire and the rest of Middle-earth, home of "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings."

Then I thought of my parents, bless their hearts, who gave me the whole set of books one Christmas. I still have them. They're the same copies my husband and I read aloud to introduce our own kids to J.R.R. Tolkien's world. 

Fond memories. All courtesy of a typo.

My copy of "The Hobbit," 
complete with beautiful runes, 
was published in 1966.

Like oh so many people today, I went to the supermarket.

Unlike so many people today, I was not shopping for hurricane supplies.

I felt a little out of place as I stood in a longer than usual line, looking out at shopping carts laden with cases of bottled water and basics like bread and milk.

What was in my arms?

 Eight Hershey bars with almonds and a pint of heavy whipping cream.

The contrast made me laugh, though I felt like I had to explain that my husband was making chocolate cream pies for a bike club ride tomorrow. (They ride rain or shine, and then they eat, rain or shine.)

Bicyclists have their priorities.

When it rains, it spores.

 You know it's been rainy when even the grass puts up an umbrella ... or two.
 A pair of enormous toadstools popped up on our neighbor's lawn Tuesday.
 These were SUV toadstools, each top spreading at least 6 inches across.
 The view from underneath was just as impressive, with hundreds of delicate gills ringing the stem.
  At that angle, they looked like miniature satellite dishes, listening for signals from the universe.
  Anybody out there?
  

Shades of "Contact"?

Louie, in full-fur mode.

To each his own, they say. "They" may not have been thinking of dogs when they said it, but it certainly fits.

While working at my computer in the kitchen the other morning, I heard Louie, our resident canine, noising about under the table. Slowly the sound sank in: claws clattering on the floor, followed by a thump. Clatter, thump. Clatter, thump. He was rolling in something.

Recalling that one of our resident felines has been having fur ball issues, I had a good idea of just what he had found. 

Sure enough, I crawled under the table and met Louie standing over the remnant of a fur ball. He stared at me, clearly about to dive back in for more.

"Leave it." I said, in my I-mean-business voice.

He did.

He's such a good boy. 

If Louie had a Facebook account,
he might choose this shot for his profile.