My wife, Pat, and I take three days off almost every year, and drive the Blueridge Mountains of Virginia during peak Fall color time. We've done it so often, we have finessed a list of things we need to do before we go and take with us. It began when I bought the first MX-5 Miata in 1992. The fact I had a RELIABLE CONVERTIBLE was what pushed this trip into reality. I HAD "rag tops", like a 1949 Buick, but you DO NOT take a car such as that anywhere but on nearby, safe roads. The Miata allowed us to just "take off" - without a worry.

"Set up our night stops, pack light, and leave the top down." That's all we demanded. Everything else would fall well enough into place. Year after year, we've seen that work just fine.

It's been so warm here, and we've done so many of these trips, it simply didn't even enter my head to look over our list this time. We packed light, I prepped the car and house, and we left after I closed FUTURES Sunday night. I had a slight nagging feeling I'd forgotten to pack something... and of course only thought of it once we were on the road and out of town:

Cold weather clothes. Undershirts, hooded sweatshirt, driving gloves, even a coat - all forgotten. "Gee, the packing looks especially tight and good this year! We're getting better at it!" Yeh. Right. The GOOD news was we just didn't need the stuff, UNLIKE EVERY other year we've done this. Talk about lucky timing. And, it was beautiful.

We'd been warned by those who live "up that way" that the trees weren't producing much color. THAT was disappointing to hear, but hey, we were OUT OF TOWN!! As it turned out, color WAS great (as you'll see when you look for yourself if you'd like. Go to "SHOP", go to page TWO, open Gallery "What I See", open the second Gallery "Miata Cruise").

The Trip/First Night:

Top down into the sunset and out of our region, speeding down the highway for four hours, north past Williamsburg, cutting through Richmond, stopping for dinner, skimming past Charlottesville, and on to the "kids" home nearby in a large country-burban gated community in the hills. We saw a big, handsome Stag deer standing on a small hillock, as if posing for the Disney follow up of "Bambi - the Adult Years".

EVERY time we visit my younger stepdaughter Holly and her husband Brian, their Golden Retrievers, Bogie & Marlow, get all weirded out and have to be completely reintroduced to us. To everyone. Every time. THEY are One-Family dogs, with very little socializing to ease the SHOCK that many other creatures exist on Earth. Heck, we were there only a week ago, with the grand kids! It's as if it never happened with those two.

This time, Holly's Grandmother was also visiting, so we all settled in for the rest of the evening, chitchatted, and played with the dogs - once they were bribed with new toys Pat got for them. Our schizy Granddogs.

Sleep is always tougher when you're not at home. This time was no different.

Day 2:

It was a Monday morning for Holly and Brian. She left for work, Brian got on the computer (work), Grandma sipped her coffee, and we soon left to find a diner. Remember, we are in the mountains, and there are only a few small towns at some distance from one another now. It's not like you can be picky. I don't remember the name of the little town, but we found a place.

In this place was an interesting and frightening building we both photographed. (You can see those at the end of the Miata trip shots.) You will see white lettering and marks up the front of this red brick building. They note each hurricane and the height of its flood waters in that town, going back into the 1800's and right up to the last one. They always get hit. Bad.

One begins to think... These people keep rebuilding this sad, little, bedraggled mountain town over, and over, and over, and over... and over... when they're clearly in a deep and dangerous pocket of land. You can't conclude much, but you CAN conclude people stick with ideas more out of emotion than intellect.

Once on Skyline Drive/Blueridge Parkway, which is just high enough to create this scenery, we saw, felt, smelled, and heard a lovely Fall season in progress. Since it was a week day, the traffic was minimal-to-zero. It was great. The colors were as varied as Fall could ever be. We'd arrived in the middle of the changes. You'll see brilliant greens against fire reds and oranges and yellows, mixed with browns and blacks. The odor of Fall is also my favorite, and in a rag top you get it all. It smells of mellowing leaf death, the sun warming and speeding their passing. If one or both of us wanted to stop, we stopped. We had no agenda. We were where we were and it went no further than that.

I leave my cell phone off anyhow, but even if I did not, I would've during this drive. The Miata was a happy car, leaves fluttered in the air in front of us and over the windshield, and when we parked, a few would land inside the car. They are NOT removed during the trip. We allow them to become part of the interior. We sit on them.

We've done this often enough, there are places we remember as stops of former trips. We remember trees, rocks, and cliffs just as much as small towns or diners.

We saw Hawks, maybe an Eagle, plenty of small furry creatures, and lots of former animals now Crow food on the road... We saw a few people bicycling over the mountains (rough stuff), motorcycle cruisers, tourists, and surprisingly few sports cars with hardly any tops down. It should be a crime to leave a top up on such a day. We could drive for 10 or 20 minutes without glimpsing another person. We made numerous stops, usually for photos, and we had most of them to ourselves. It was ideal.

I didn't bring any music. It sort of slipped my mind, but I also just wanted the sounds to be those we and the planet made. The Miata sounds like a sports car when you "get on it", but during easy drives and coasting, it's nearly silent. This allows you to hear each leaf crunch under each tire. They sort of "pop" because the tire is only on it a split second. You hear the crickets coming from every group of plants, the wind rattling the leaves still attached, the crystal clear "caw" of a Crow hovering above you... and on you go to the next and the next and the next sensory moment that passes as quickly and easily as the air over the car and our heads.

Such is Life.

Night 2:

A motel in Lynchburg. Do you know Lynchburg? It's a large small town in Virginia, made "famous" by Jerry Fall-Well and his "Liberty University". Yeh. It'd be easy to think the town got its name from the hobby of its citizens, but no, it was merely named after some guy who started a commercial success of some sort - like every other town. You either name a place for yourself, or the place you loved so much you left it behind for good. Oh, OR you name it after some teeny tiny itsy bitsy moment that you and your neighbors blow up way the hell out of proportion, until it's seemingly significant.

One black stone is found on the ground, and in your stupor from lack of stimulation there, you find that so exciting you name the town after it. Blackstone Virginia.

You find a can of oil, and it's such a big deal to you, the town becomes "Oilville".

Don't ask me about "Goochland" Virginia. I have NO clue. It could've been a nickname for big, blood sucking mosquitos for all I know. "Jebediah, you haveth one big Gooch on your arm. You should swatteth it."

Washington was named after Washington. THAT is straight forward and not without it's justification.

Truth or Consequences New Mexico? Named after the old tee-vee game show. True. "Archaeologists theorize that this town's name was because they brought all their criminals to this town and tortured them until they confessed their sins."

Silverton Colorado. They struck silver. It almost became the capital of Colorado... but there were more rich dudes in the area that would became Denver. Gold's better than silver.

ANYHOW..................................................

We had a decent meal near the motel at an Appleby's, came back, strolled around in lovely weather, and visited the local bowling alley (near the motel) on League Night.

Though the place was packed with men fondling their big balls, it was clear they noticed us as being "non-Leaguers" - "outsiders" - "strangers". Since we were being noticed, I began making up a story about why we were present. Pat jumped in on the idea, and pretty soon we were ready to let them know we were NBC scouts looking for the "right type" of men for a reality t.v. show in the works - about Bowling. It wasn't about their SCORES, but about the colorful ways in which they behaved, argued, played, and fought. Line 'em up against the lockers and take photos of them with their balls hanging in their hands. We could have the place in a psychic tornado in no time. Everyone's games would fall to pieces due to lack of concentration. The local paper would get "wind" of this after our departure the next morning, and the town would be on bowling pins-n-needles for the next month, wondering if anyone made "the cut" for further interviews...

"I think I'll rename m'self 'Jimmy Pinkiller'!"

"Not me! I'm gonna be 'Ally Slayer'!"

"Dude. That's a CHICK'S name!!"

"Ain't neither! Take it back!!"

Day 3:

We woke to gray humid drizzle. Fortunately, our Fall color phase was over now that we were off the higher mountains. We had a breakfast at the motel restaurant, I again cleaned the bug guts off the windshield, and off we went with an adjusted plan to find an antique mall or something as we headed home - which was many hours of driving away.

Pat's portable toy, her GPS, is known as "Dave". "Dave" talks to Pat. We used and tried to use "Dave", but "Dave" didn't know they were ripping up roads and changing things since "Dave" came off the assembly line, so we dealt with it on our own. A very nice man let us into his mall an hour early, because we were from out of town and I was a dealer AND Pat was a kitchen designer and THEY were having a nightmare of an experience with the local contractors, so while I shopped, she advised the wife. I found very little, but it was a funny and nice experience.

We found other places as we travelled - from the very nice, to the old grubby geezer who could give a crap whether you were there or not - just don't interrupt his reading the latest hunting supply catalog.

"Gawd DAMM, Jimbo! Lookit this!! They's a-makin' camo skivvies! I gots'ta git me summa them!"

Our altitude and attitude changed as we went lower towards home territory. The woods became more tangled with undergrowth, everything was switching back to green and brown, the peanut fields were turning yellow, the cotton fields were dark brown with white cotton puff bolls, the towns took on more of a low income sheen.

"The Dairy Queen closed."

"That's too bad."

"Yeh."

We entered our area with the typical craziness of rush hour and the bad drivers we've come to expect. I must say, the drivers in Lynchburg - for whatever reason(s) - know how to drive. Perhaps it's the fear of Shunning. Whatever the case, it works.

Still, once you're home, you're Home. The door feels this way, the stairwell sounds that way, the bed is still unmade in the way you (I) left it. You can smell the 1937 bakelite phone, the slumping flowers in the kitchen window ledge vase, and the overall atmosphere of Our Life in This Place.

Still, if our house ever goes under water from a hurricane, I ain't stayin', I ain't rebuildin', I ain't puttin' measure marks on the outside walls.

---

(If you can't get out and enjoy Fall, at least do this. I feel better just LOOKING at these photos.)