This weather. This weather! Would you say it is more crisp than brisk? Or is it really more brisk than crisp? Let's call it even and close the matter.
When it cools down, our thoughts turn to the pleasures of autumn. And how the prevailing thought is there isn't any autumn action in or near LA. We always recognize a new Angeleno because, after bemoaning the traffic, the lack of fall color is next on the not-warming-to-LA list.
Which is a shame, since there's lots of pretty foliage around; parts of Sweetzer, South Pas and the Overland/405 area come to mind. No, it isn't Vermont. But what we lack in maples we more than make up for in aspens, oaks and cottonwoods dotted here and there. And when you take a day trip to the mountains, boy howdy. Crimsons and golds galore.
Besides the leafy list put together by the Times last fall, there are sites citing California locations as great autumn getaways. Yosemite often makes the rosters, of course. The area around Bishop, and the Eastern Sierras. Idyllwild, Lake Arrowhead, Julian, Big Bear. We like the rundown eHow compiled offering fall-y suggestions for Golden Staters.
There's only one thing for it: pull on something pert and plaid and Ivy League-ish, pack a picnic hamper and make for these leafy wonderlands with camera in hand. The folks back home will hardly believe that's you, rolling in a damp pile of crackling autumnal woodland.
Oh, we mentioned the rolling-in-a-damp-pile-of-crackling-autumnal-woodland part, right? We didn't?
