by Ken Carman, Inspection ~ Guest Contributor

The Jeep and the ’98 Nissan Frontier sliced through pumpkin pie hills south of Rochester, NY, heading to Tennessee.

Just a few hours earlier we were slowly cruising under a canopy of brilliant oranges, reds, greens and yellows on a one lane dirt road, carefully bouncing over rocks, dipping down into water washed out potholes, wheels rolling over a carpet of freshly fallen leaves.

Destination: the barge to the mainland that crosses Stillwater Reservoir. For there are no roads to Beaver River Station, where I have been since late July. I decided to lead my wife in the Jeep for the scenic, slightly longer way home.

The mountains along old route 17 through Salamanca, Olean, and other lesser known New York woodland ports, did not disappoint.

The leaves had not changed yet in Tennessee, except a light frosting of red on a few, when we finally drove down our quarter-mile driveway the next day, finally arriving home to our own little valley.

But they were in full Monet mode in New York.

How do I pose prose worthy enough to express the richness of the colors in an Adirondack fall?

In Tennessee a tree changes here, changes there, until all that’s left is bare, lonely, limbs looking down upon a beatific ground cover that once hung high.

In the Central Adirondacks it’s as if a nuclear explosion of color swept the hills, radiating them with visual splendor. Continue reading →