“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” – Anne Shirley,
from L.M. Montgomery’s 1908 classic novel Anne of Green Gables
Fall is, without any close seasonal competition, my favorite time of year. It’s cool but not cold, warm but not hot, and unlike springtime, there are fewer allergens and no pollen blanketing everything outdoors. And there is also no mad rush for holiday preparation, either. Don’t get me wrong – – I do enjoy holidays, but fall brings the peace before the chaos, the calm before the storm of Christmas shopping, baking, and gatherings. The dogs are still content and settled, not yet stirred up in all the changes in routine and visitors.
And the leaves. Nature’s masterpiece has matured from her springtime buds, ripened to her full bloom in the summer, and in fall has crisped to all the gorgeous shades of an artist’s palette. It’s stunning to step outside and look to a valley resplendent with fall colors for miles in every direction from the top of a mountain.
That’s why we love camping at F. D. Roosevelt State Park so much. It’s at the tip top of Pine Mountain, less than an hour west from home but feels like it’s a long way off, and the mountain gives us a taste of North Georgia without actually being there. This morning, it’s 45 degrees out, and that sweater weather I’ve been craving has surpassed the mark and gone to sturdy jacket weather for the first dog peeing window of the morning. You can still smell the smoke from last night’s campfires in the air and on your clothes, see the acorns someone before you left on the picnic table for you to enjoy, and feel the stirrings of cold wind brush your cheek and send leaves swirling to the ground all around you. Fellow dog walkers are out with their own camping dogs, and early birds are preparing to cook breakfast. Soon there will be the smell of bacon sizzling in every direction. For now, though, my coffee is brewing and its rich aroma greets me like the welcoming home of a family member from an it’s-been-too-long scolding. I’ll step inside and finish morning prayers a few hundred feet closer to heaven today than I am at home, in location and in mindset.
In a few minutes, I’ll slice fresh baked pumpkin bread and share a bite with three tiny waggy tail patient waiters with perked up ears and the cutest cocked heads, a trio of rescues who have never ever committed a single wrong in their entire lives and never will, if you ask them. One is on his first camping trip – maybe ever – but at least in the Wayfarer with us. He’s still learning how all this works, and the good Lord allowed him a quick lesson that putting his nose in my piping hot coffee cup and trying to steal a quick taste has its own consequence.
A while later, I’ll build a fire and cuddle up under a blanket in the padded chair to read out by the warmth where life is buzzing with relaxed morning enjoyment by the good-spirited folks who walk past in wrinkled flannel shirts and one-notch-above-pajama pants but way short of a matching sweatsuit, further still from social attire required anywhere but on a campground, everyone’s hair still tousled from last night and holding a dog leash in one hand and a coffee cup in the other. I’m going back and forth between Road Trip by Mary Kay Andrews and two of my favorite memoir-ish country living volumes by Gladys Taber: Especially Dogs and Stillmeadow Road. A good while after that, in between walking dogs and birdwatching with Merlin at the helm and pimento cheese sandwiches and few games of computer mahjong, I’ll change into actual blue jeans and bring out the real tiles and racks and light an apple cider candle while I play a couple of hands of Messy.
Camping days in the
fall are the best days of all
with a stacked woodpile
