The streets are lovely, dark and deep

Living on the edge of a small mid-western town gives me distinctly different routes to use whenever I need to go somewhere.

I can zip out onto the interstate and fly around town at seventy miles an hour.

I can go through town to the belt-line road and travel a comfortable forty five miles an hour.

Or -- I can go right straight up my street, driving all the way through town at a leisurely thirty miles an hour.

The last is my favorite way. I love to look at the old houses and trees and flowers, the quaint little businesses tucked in here and there, and the way the light plays off of all of them.

While you might expect Spring, or Summer to be the best seasons to do this, I am surprised at how much more beautiful it is in the Fall.

The vibrant reds and yellows mixed in with the deep shadows and richer light of Fall remind me of the burnished crimson and golds in a Vermeer.  It is Brigadoon mixed in with Robert Frost and Rabbie Burns.  It's A Wonderful Life and Harvey and the Enchanted Cottage.

It is our town.