Ah, ASPENS!

“Go spend time with the aspen trees.  They’ll tell you how it works.  They’ll tell you to look to your roots for energy.  They’ll tell you there’s warmth below the surface.”   Kaya McLaren

Aspens have always fascinated me.  I love the yellow leaves in the fall, especially when they blow in the wind.  But the black and white trunks fascinate me as well—they somehow exude strength and dignity.  But the truth about aspens is even more remarkable than how gorgeous they are.

Each individual tree is actually part of a greater whole, a larger organism called a cluster or clone.  All the trees in a grove share the same root system.  Even if all the visible trees are damaged or cut down, the root system lives on, sending more trees up into the world.  In fact, each tree is really an identical replicant of all the other trees on the stand. If any specific tree needs a bit more help than the others—like more water or nutrients—the root system helps make that happen.   Talk about one big family!

The world’s oldest living aspen clone is in Utah, and it has lived more than 80,000 years.  That’s older than Sequoias and Ancient Bristlecone Pines.

ASPENS ARE TRULY REMARKABLE!

I loved watching the leaves dance when a gentle breeze blew through.

 

The photos in this blog were taken on my recent drive along Highway 120 over the Tioga Pass and along the June Lake Loop off Highway 395.  To learn more details about aspens, visit these two blogs:  Life is an Aspen Tree and Aspen: So Much More Than a Tree.

A few little fall surprises

Recently I took a trip to find the reds and golds and oranges of fall leaves, announcing the ongoing change of seasons.  And I found those glorious colors almost everywhere.  But I was also surprised by some other little delights along the way.  These little surprises remind me to always be willing to stop, look and listen for little wonders that are all around!

As Ralph Waldo Emerson explains, “Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting—a wayside sacrament.  Welcome it in every fair face, every fair sky, in every flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.”

Here are some of the treasures that were waiting to be noticed while I was hunting for autumn leaves:

The first golden hues I noticed were not falling leaves but the golden bushes blooming in the Mojave Desert.

North of Bishop on Highway 395, Mono Lake was still shining forth, patiently holding on until the end of the drought.

This flag kept flying even through the rain was pounding down all day long in Redding.

Green—my favorite color—was evident all over.  Always is.  We just need to remember to notice and marvel at its persistence.

I am always pleasantly surprised to find wildlife along the road.  This little guy was wandering the road in Yosemite National Park.

In Yosemite, I also had a little passenger for a bit, while sitting at a road block when crews worked on trimming and removing some trees.  She did not pose very well, but I felt lucky all day having spent some time with this little ladybug—especially in October.

At various stops on my trip, I was delighted by the flowers that caught my eye.  Not the fall colors I was looking for, but gorgeous nonetheless.

I really enjoyed the rain that punctuated this trip.  The impressive clouds were just an added bonus.

My trip was great, but it was made better by these unexpected delights.  My best advice?  Always keep your eyes and heart open for whatever delightful surprises might come your way.  As Boris Pasternak explains, “Surprise is the greatest gift that life can grant us.”  But it is up to us to notice the wonders along the way.

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A FEW QUOTES ABOUT SURPRISES

“There are only two ways to live your life.  One is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle.”  Albert Einstein

“Things never go the way you expect them to.  That’s both the joy and frustration in life.  I’m finding as I get older that I don’t mind, though.  It’s the surprises that tickle me the most, the things you don’t see coming.”   Michael Stuhlbarg

“Life is so full of unpredictable beauty and strange surprises.”  Mark Oliver Everett

“Surprises are everywhere in life.”  Brownell Landrum

“Life is full of surprises and serendipity.  Being open to unexpected turns in the road is an important part of success.  If you try to plan every step, you may miss those wonderful twists and turns.  Just find your next adventure—do it well, enjoy it—and then, not now, think about what comes next.”  Condoleeza Rice

“The real voyage of discovery consists of not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”  Marcel Proust

 “God is the experience of looking at a tree and saying, ‘Ah!’”   Joseph Campbell

 “In all things of nature there is something marvelous.”  Aristotle

 “Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.”  Socrates

 “The whole of life lies in the verb seeing.”   Teilhard de Chardin

 “Learn to see, and then you’ll know that there is no end to the new worlds of our vision.”  Carlos Casaneda

FINDING FALL COLORS

If I needed a reason to go on a Nature Trek to find some fall colors to rejuvenate my soul, I had one.  I am not teaching online this fall so did not need high speed secure access to the internet, which is not always feasible from hotel rooms.  And I would not have to be grading way too many essays, so could devote my time to the solitude and contemplation found in Nature.  So why not go on a road trip?  Besides, I had a new dash cam to play with, trying to capture some videos of the great roads I planned to travel.

Lassen Volcanic National Park

This little road trip took me on a loop from Bakersfield to Bishop to Reno to Redding to Fresno and then back to Bishop and home.  The Lassen Volcanic National Park that was on the route was closed already for winter travel, so I only saw about 10 miles of it—I will have to try visiting there again sometime.  I also was grounded for a day due to a steady all-day downpour.  The sky was all dark grey clouds and the mountain roads I would have been on were twisty and steep, so I opted not to press my luck.

Tioga Pass, Yosemite

On the whole, the trip was a great success!  Most of what I saw were lots and lots of pine trees, given the elevations I was traveling.  But some splotches of fall colors stood out to brighten the drives.  I even traveled across the Tioga Pass in Yosemite again, even though I figured there would not be much fall color.  It offered some dramatic views that I will share in a later post.  The rain that punctuated several days of my trip did not diminish the glorious wonders of the drive either.  I like driving in the rain, especially when the rain is so needed in California to fight against the five-year drought.

The first stretch of fall colors popped up along California Highway 395 outside of Bishop, California, as captured by my dash cam.  I’m having fun learning to make use of this new little toy.  Light and shadows really are evident in the video, but it captures the colors rushing past.

I’ve visited Yosemite National Park in the fall before, so I knew there would be some impressive color to appreciate.  This time, the colors came through even on a rainy day.

I’m not sure if this little video caught the leaves falling steadily from the trees as a breeze swept through the area, but it was a great little show.

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QUOTES ABOUT AUTUMN’S BEAUTY  & WONDER

“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”    L. M. Montgomery

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”    Albert Camus

“Fall has always been my favorite season.  The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale.”    Lauren DeStefano

“Spring passes and one remembers one’s innocence.   Summer passes and one remembers one’s exuberance.  Autumn passes and one remembers one’s reverence.  Winter passes and one remembers one’s perseverance.”   Yoko Ono

“Autumn is the hardest season.  The leave are all falling, and they’re falling like they’re falling in love with the ground.”   Andrea Gibson

“No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face.”   John Donne

“Autumn. . . the year’s last, loveliest smile.”   William Cullen Bryant

“I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house.”   Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons.”   Jim Bishop

“There is something incredibly nostalgic and significant about the autumnal cascade of autumn leaves.”   Joe L. Wheeler

“And I rose in rainy autumn and walked abroad in a shower of all my days. . . .”   Dylan Thomas

“Delicious autumn!  My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”   George Eliot

“I saw old Autumn in the misty morn stand shadowless like silence, listening to silence.”   Thomas Hood

“Autumn burned brightly,  a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees.”   Faith Baldwin

“Autumn is the season of change.”   Taoist Proverb

WHERE DO YOU GO TO SEE THE BEAUTY OF AUTUMN ALL AROUND?