Driving up Snowy River
(River = Lane in the Midwest.
Didn't you know that?)

Say it Isn't Snow! A PictoREAL Adventure Posted Oct-12-2006
"Snow way, snow how!" — Blizzard of Oz
I woke up this morning and was shocked to see it snowing outside. Yesterday it was raining *all day long* and today we get a flurry of snow activity in the Midwest. I was shocked because I can't remember any other instance in my lifetime when it's snowed this early in October. Lots of rain — yes. Usually the first snow of the season comes sometime in November — but not this year!

Fifteen minutes after I rolled out of bed a friend 'out and about' called me to say, "If you want to see colorful fall trees like you've never seen them before, go find some tall ones and look at them before the sunshine melts all the snow away!" Not one to let such an opportunity pass by, I threw on my clothes, grabbed my digital camera, and jumped in my car without even combing my hair for an adventure in finding big colorful trees with snow on the leaves.

For about an hour I drove around town taking pictures of trees and scenes capturing the arrival of a mid-October winter pushing autumn to hurry up. No — I'm not ready yet! Oh well, weather or not <smile>, here it comes. The good news is it was only a teaser snow and most of it melted off by mid-afternoon.

Snow Leaf Tree

During my adventure I stopped by my favorite walking path and tromped through the snow in the grass to get some close-ups. The pictures here illustrate the chilling effect the weather had on me — on everyone around here — today. By time I came in from my picture-taking, my socks were wet and my feet were freezing!

Why no color in the pictures? 'Cause I pretended like I was an early 1900s photographer. Just kidding! (I still secretly think that before Technicolor came around everything in the world really was black, white, and shades of gray. Well that's how it looks in the old movies! If Humphrey Bogart ever wore a red shirt, who would know?).

But seriously, for creative fun I thought it would be interesting to let your imagination fill in the color in these pictures. If Alfred Hitchcock can do it (Psycho), then so can I. That's a good solution to the real truth: Most of my pictures missed that good picture-taking sunshine because the SNOW clouds kept blocking it and they looked washed-out anyway. And snow it goes. •

Snow White's Coach Pumpkin
(we'll just do some story mixing here
— I'm sure Cinderella won't mind).

© 2006 Chris Dunmire www.chrisdunmire.com. All rights reserved.