We spent our last weekend of the season in Mineral King over Columbus Day weekend. The weather was beautiful – about time, after all the smoke this summer! It really seemed weird to shutter things up for the winter when we were running around in shorts and sandals, but it certainly is better than closing in a cold storm.

There hasn’t been very good color this year. It could be due to the drought, although there were 15″ of precipitation this summer (mistakenly reported in an earlier post as happening in July – thank you, Trail Guy, for keeping me straightened out on the facts!) The leaves mostly turned brown early and then fell off. Just turned brown and fell off! Sigh.

Hey! I painted this scene a few years ago. I sort of lost track of the painting – did it sell? Who bought it? Or is it in one of the places that sell my work and I forgot to list it? (Sounds like someone needs to pay closer attention to her business. . .)

 

 

This is the part of the trail that looks like a yellow tunnel in some years. These are cottonwood trees. The aspens are further up the trail, but we had work to do instead of popping around chasing colored trees. Such responsible adults.

This was in 2010.

The grasses were sort of yellowish. This coming winter will be a big one, it will end the drought, put lots of white in the mountains and water in the rivers and the lakes and the aquifers and green on the hills. (You listening, God? That is actually a request, not a demand. Amen.)