Almost Fall

And Roark's Cove wears it well.

Escape Hatch

Have car, will travel.

Roark's Cove Color

Fall color arrived today after hard rain. Roark's Cove after a long commute takes me meandering atop a palette slathered with fall's bounty. I slow down, my eyes fill, and tension lightens. Enough said.

Commuting through the Countryside

I have a long commute (about 51 miles), but happily it's a beautiful one.

I begin atop a mountain and, on a good day like today, wind down Roark's Cove Road (also called the Alto Road), with switchbacks and dropoffs all the way down. Then I drive past a beautiful year-round garden into tiny Alto, where I turn right by the seedman and pass the peach-colored old house, circa 1900, with its five-grave front-yard cemetery. Then it's onto Highway 64 to the interstate at a Stuckey's where I've stopped for candy and, once, for lunch. After thirty miles on the freeway (by the Arnold Air Force and Arnold Engineering and then through Manchester), I turn off onto another Highway 64 (The Walking Horse Highway) and then Highway 82 (Sawney Webb Memorial Highway.

It's 82 that I enjoy most for its views of rolling farmland dotted with cows and goats and hummocks of green as far as my eye can see. This morning, I pulled off in the middle of the bent S-curve to take this photo, but it doesn't really capture the charm. Like rural England, rural Middle Tennessee is a verdant place indeed that lifts the spirit even before 7 AM.