Fall Meander Over Grand Mesa Stirs Soul

Perhaps the Beatles said it best, "Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away." Why, you ask? Well, I'll tell you why... in fact, I'll do better than tell you, I'll show and tell you why. Looky here...

On a day forecasted to be overcast with gloom... 60 percent chance of rain... we went anyway. Might as well leave my camera at home, right? But if the Red Sea can be parted, why not gloom? 

The gods job descriptions demand that they trial humans with tribulation, grief... death. Test, test, test. But every once in a great while their Boss allows them to take pity, to us show favor. So on a dismal pre-winter's day, gloom parted like the Red Sea; we motored on dry land the grandest of all mesas, Grand Mesa. Spanky and Our Gang chipped in on the FM, singing, "Suddenly the sun broke through..."  

Hear me. I've lived in Colorful Colorado since 1976... something over 36 falls have come and gone. But I have yet to lay eyes on such a continuous quilt of autumnal colors as yesterday. It was nothing short of a patchwork masterpiece, that almost... almost... rivaled, and sometimes exceeded, our nuts to butts tour through New England a few years ago. 

Out here, orange is more scarce in fall and thus a treat. Not yesterday. And some years the aspen are gorgeous, but the oak brush is dull... or vice versa. But yesterday was a symphony... a sustained crescendo of color, including orange. A fall quilt wrapped Grand Mesa's shoulders. Color poured over cliffs, flowing in rivers of melted crayon and rainbows. Like a Philharmonic Orchestra it was a team performance... no one ran short of breath, no one missed a single note, no one dared to let the Maestro down. In baseball it was the perfect game. In basketball it was the game winning half court heave. In football it was the punt returned for a touchdown... the rare defiance of a plethora of variables, odds and circumstance. Yesterday, Ms Autumn put on her "Red Dress" show like I've never witnessed before. It was of Biblical proportion, like the parting of the Red Sea, and we were fortunate enough to have been there... the right place at the right time... and witnessed a hundred year fall on the aspened slopes of the world's biggest flat top mountain, Grand Mesa.

  
More photos to come... stay tuned, and thanks for dropping by Box Canyon in Lovely Ouray, Colorado.