Crisp Bright Cold - Missoula, Montana

brisk bright winter air
Darjeeling toque warms with thoughts
of India days

-cjh

Orange You Glad - Missoula, Montana

Such outrageous orangey-ness 
amidst our morning meeting feast!

With US Thanksgiving on the horizon,
 timing is ripe to ponder how you might complete
 the thanks-focused phrase: 
"Orange you glad for ________________________?"

(And the above text link provides a few orangey knock-knock jokes to test how thankful your family is to gather together....)

Poured Out Autumn Palette - Missoula, Montana

“One should be a painter.

As a writer, I feel the beauty,

 which is almost entirely colour,

 very subtle, very changeable,

 running over my pen,

 as if you poured a large jug of champagne over a hairpin.”

-Virginia Woolf (1882-1941),

  from The Letters of Virginia Woolf: Volume Six, 1936-1941

Snowberries Reprise - Missoula, Montana

“Birds sing after a storm; why shoudn't people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them?"

 - Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy (1890-1995)

Daily Dose: Joy - Missoula, Montana

“Don't postpone joy until you have learned all of your lessons. 
Joy is your lesson.” 
  - Alan Cohen

And joy is so often found in the simple, small things of life - including the perfect light of a storm-sky morning that causes snowberries to almost glow against the backdrop of Mount Jumbo.

Leafstrewn Sidewalk - Missoula, Montana

And Grant Creek flows directly underneath this little stretch of golden carpet....

World In (Fall) Colour - Missoula, Montana

The last sentence of this (rather chemically adventurous) scientist's quote was, for me, a rather striking reminder of another way we are set apart from amongst all other life on this earth to receive such unmerited care and graciousness:

“Outside is pure energy and colorless substance. 
All of the rest happens through the mechanism of our senses. 
Our eyes see just a small fraction of the light in the world. 
It is a trick to make a colored world, which does not exist outside of human beings.” 
- Albert Hofmann (1906-2008)

M For Missoula - Mount Sentinel, Missoula, Montana

When you stand just below it, Mount Sentinel's "M" really is rather gigantic - I inched back down the trail until it mostly fit in my viewfinder. And you don't fully appreciate the annoyingly arduous trail until you turn through that 11th switchback to arrive at the M (which is not the same as "at the top" - you can go further up and further in, and even explore an old mine cave - hence the trees visible between M and sky!)