I know.
It was as inevitable as, well, as the change of seasons.
It WAS the Change of Seasons!
It happened again. Right on time. The Autumnal Equinox.
Not the happiest of times around the old household. Susan and I are Summer People. We each have our birthday in the Summer. We love opening windows and neither of us are overly fond of air conditioning. We're glad to have it when it's needed but we find ourselves needing it less and less as we go along. We're outside, being active and loving every minute of it.
So now the nights are longer than the days.
And the windows will stay mostly closed until sometime next April.
This past Saturday was the first Saturday of Fall.
We woke up late, took our sweet time getting out of bed. Then after getting dressed, we walked, didn't drive, to the local Fire Station. Why walk to the local Fire Station on the first Saturday of Fall?
Two words...Free Pancakes.
Add four more words...All You Can Eat.
Whoa.
Not too much to dislike about that! That's worth getting out of bed and walking a half mile for.
We got there at a good time. The line was short-ish. Got to greet the Fire Chief and an EMT.
Got to eat a plateful of freshly made pancakes, a biscuit and gravy, some sausage. A couple cups of coffee.
Yeah, we weren't counting calories but we were OK with that. How often does one get a chance to eat free comfort food in a fire station? We weren't going to pass on that chance.
We grabbed our second cup of coffee and headed for a walk through our little town. Crossed the railroad tracks, strolled through the "downtown" and stopped at a bench in the small park just past the gas station. It's a nice enough park. Doesn't get enough use and I'm not sure why. It's got a gazebo large enough to hold a number of people. It's grassy areas are fairly well tended. Big trees. Plenty of shrubbery and flowers. And a creek!
The sun was shining on and off, there were a good number of clouds around. The temperature was holding in the upper fifties but there was no breeze to speak of. We were comfortable, we were sitting in a pretty park, we were sipping a cup of coffee.
SPOILER ALERT!
Listen - if you think I'm going to write about how everything was all rosy and then, BLAMM-O, the roof caved in and smiles turned to frowns and what should have been a great day turned into a rotten one. Forget it. Not going to happen. Sorry.
After the coffee in the park we continued our walk through our town, through some neighborhoods we normally drive past without more than a glance up and down the street. And we were surprised at the things we saw. Houses big and small, new and old. We went over a couple of hills and ended up at the end of a dead end street. Turned around and re-traced our steps. The neighborhood changed from suburban sprawl to a deep woods in a matter of less than a half mile. By the time we were at the bottom of the hill and turning around at the dead end, we could have been in any woods in any number of places but certainly not mere steps from our cute little park, gas station, library and fire station. We stopped and heard birds chirping, something scurrying in the underbrush and nothing else but our own breathing.
We had left our home an hour earlier looking for pancakes and found ourselves a little bit of unexpected solitude.
Nice.
We made our way back home, got into our car and went out to get some mums for our front porch planters. Found some beauties and planted them immediately.
It wasn't even noon and we were already finding a cure for our end of summer blues.
On the first Saturday of Fall.
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