For a couple youthful decades and more, each year we hurled
ourselves against Superior’s late autumn wilderness.
Dared that to eat us.
Occasionally, it nearly did.
Yet every year we returned. Made stronger and more
determined, by what we knew.
Superior woods whisper best in autumn, right until they
don’t.
Certainly, the later we pushed our luck into October, the
greater the odds of snow. It only took a couple times camping in spent woods
laid low by snow, to know full well that’s not what we sought.
Timing was everything.
As of this writing, the official U.P. color tracker rates our old stomping grounds as 'partial'. Peak color, maybe next week.
Such a late would’ve been considered aberrant, back when. Today it’s definitely not.
In any event, we enjoyed no such informational resources.
Instead, every year required our best, increasingly educated
guess. We had to recognize the right moment before it came, so we’d be there
when it did.
In effect, we had to know.
Mostly that youthful learning curve worked out increasingly
well for us, year over year over year.
Until we weren’t exactly youthful, evermore.
Seasons change. As do the times.
Once we’d earned our late season stripes and then some from
the autumnal wilderness, we sensibly retreated to the late summer beach.
S’okay.
Because Superior autumn's perfect light lives inside me now, and always will.
