First Snowfall of Autumn

Monday and Tuesday were warm and windy. I grumbled as I put on a lightweight skirt and short sleeve blouse and sandals for work yet again. Frowned as switched on the air conditioner in the car. Checked the Weather Channel, and read about friends on the Northwest coast receiving fog and rain.

Wednesday I woke up, looked outside and saw that the scenes outside had changed.

Snow had fallen on the "benches" as they call the mountains around here.

This is a picture of Mt. Olympus, the mountain I look at every day from my kitchen window.

The sky: Could it get any darker over "my" mountain? The temperatures had dropped, and the cold winds made my eyes tear up.

I found a place where I could capture my community at the base of the mountain.
Autumn has slipped lower and down among us; winter has dances upon the peaks that touch the sky above us.

Autumn colors and snowfall combining together is a rare short lived event. I took an extended lunch to visually satiate myself and to capture the beauty forever with my trusty camera.

About a mile up the road from our house is an area called Neff's Canyon. It has a parking lot and a trail that leads up the canyon alongside a stream bed. Bernie and I have hiked it once...on a hot day. I told him I'd wait until the weather cooled before trying the trail again.

This picture was taken while I was still at the trail head, in the parking lot!

(Me: click. click. take a step. click. click.....)

The clouds were absorbing the light, yet when the sun got the smallest breakthrough, the colors became almost blinding.

If only I could have gotten there sooner...snow on the red leaves would have been magnificent.

I turned around, and walked to the other edge of the parking lot, which overlooked the Salt Lake Valley. The Unitas Mountains are in the distance on the other side of the valley; I am in the Wasatch "front" (mountains) as I photograph.

It was so tempting to skip the rest of the work day and go hiking up now muddy trail.

A perfect header shot wouldn't you say?
(Jeepers...I seem to be changing my header daily now.)

Since I had "skipped" eating lunch during my lunch time so I could jam around taking pictures, I decided to stop by the house to grab a sandwich before heading back to work.

The view above was taken looking up the street in front of my house.

The view from our deck to Mt. Olympus behind us.

But wait!

All those pictures before were taken yesterday, Wednesday Sept. 30th.
This morning B. got up and looked out the window and said "There's snow on the lawn."

Yesterday's snow hadn't touched our property. This morning....snow at our place, on our deck.

And on B.'s car.

Last weekend he had declared that we HAD to clear out our garage and donate the stuff that we had left over from our move.

He said his goal was to be able to park the cars in the garage by October 1st.

Apparently he was prophetic about the need for this to happen by that particular date.

Last night (Sept. 30th) I parked in the garage for the first time since our furniture arrived last April.

This morning...

Oct. 1st....

Boy was I glad MY car didn't need to be scrapped this morning!

(He didn't go to work...a touch of flu...chills...feverish. H1N1 has hit his workplace already.)

Remember yesterday's picture from our deck?

18 hrs later, it looked like this!

Will winter here hold heavy snowfall?

El Nino, El Nina...I get them confused.

Whatever.

Me personally:

I'm rooting for the snow!