The arrival of autumn brings more than just Santa Anas. It's also the time of year the leaves start changing into their fall colors. OK, it can hardly be compared to, say, upstate New York, but if you're willing to drive into the mountains, you can at least get a "taste" of what other places get to enjoy as the trees change from green to autumn brown, red, orange and gold.
Up across from the Laguna Mountain Lodge for example, co-owner John McWay sent us the above picture of a tree across the road, just beginning to make the change. In another couple of weeks, it and hundreds of others along the highway between Mt. Laguna and Julian, will gradually go from green to something else as the days get shorter and the nights longer.
And if you really want to get the flavor of true fall colors and don't have a luxury of a trip to the Northeast, well, how about a road trip north, up into the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Attached is a slide show of some early autumn shots taken on the first day of autumn up in Inyo County on the east side of the Sierra.
