Fall Is Coming

The most wonderful time of the year is fall and it's about to be here. The temperatures start to drop and the leaves turn wonderful shades of orange, yellow and red. Football games appear on television. Halloween season approaches with haunted houses appearing in various abandoned K-Marts across the country. Fall festivals spring up with corn mazes, apple dunking, hay wagons and lots of other games that often involve corn. In the fall football is on television almost every single night. Turkey and ham season starts up in full. Football is happening at our local high schools. Football is happening at your Alma mater. Football is happening at your favorite pro team's stadium. Football! Wait, what was I talking about again?  Oh right, it's autumn and it's awesome. It's my favorite time of the year and many people will be hitting the road to seek out some fall foliage.

Corn (and farm-related toys and random zebras) must be part of any fall festival

Pumpkins for sale

Jack-o-Lantern

Yahoo, that website that somehow still exists today and is visited WAY more than you can imagine, has put together a list of it's "10 Best Trips To Take This Fall" and it's worth checking out. There are some predictable choices on here like the Great Smoky Mountains and parks up in the Northeast that are famous for amazing fall colors. But there are also some interesting choices on here like a trip to the Four Corners in the desert southwest which is not a location you'd expect to see amazing fall colors. Here you get amazing colors year round with beautiful red and orange mountains and mesas everywhere you look. In some ways this article is simply a list of great places to go anytime of the year, but it's worth reading now just in case you need some ideas for a trip this fall. 

If you do plan to head for a location like the Smokies, please be advised that the roads will get VERY crowded. But get this - the fall colors do not stop at the national park border. They magically keep going! So just explore the valleys and mountains outside of the park to see amazing fall colors without the traffic. Think of taking a drive through the North Georgia mountains or hit US 64 and explore Southwestern North Carolina. Take drives through the Cumberland Plateau in North Alabama, Northern Georgia, Tennessee and up in to Kentucky. A great fall trip would be heading to Chattanooga for the weekend, then taking a drive up Lookout Mountain and exploring Lula Lake and Cloudland Canyon*. Plus, I'm sure you can come up with countless more places with lots of trees to admire as their leaves change.

Cloudland Canyon in Georgia

So here's to Fall and all the fun (and football) to come! You can check out Yahoo's list here.

*I'm am obligated to remind you that if you visit Lookout Mountain, and you have not been to Rock City, you must go there!  I mean, this is waiting for you:

Gnomes await you(r soul) in Rock City