What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens.

Regulars to this blog might recall that the family here at the Nuthouse Estate is well known for their faithful observance of what has become a sacred family tradition here – the annual fall leaf hunt.

Armed with cameras slung over every shoulder, memory cards and memory sticks and tripods and monopods, we head out into the surrounding wilderness in search of robust fall color and quaint rural scenery. This year, I have a new gadget in my arsenal of equipment, a polarizing filter! As most anyone who’s ever shot fall color knows, having the right light is essential for the best captures. The problem is, the typical work schedule, the weather and the turning of the leaves do not always work together toward the desired end. And if your leaf hunt happens to be on a very sunny day, your hosed as far as getting good color – UNLESS, you have the handy dandy polarizing filter!

In the past, our leaf hunt itinerary consisted basically, of simply (and LITERALLY!) getting lost in the rural countryside in ours and surrounding counties. This year however, I wanted to venture a little farther, and considered that it might be wise to attempt to follow, at least somewhat, a planned itinerary, so that I don’t find myself wandering around the back roads and backwoods of Appalachia sometime Sunday evening, a single woman with 2 bi-racial grandchildren trying to find their way back home. I’m not quite up for a Deliverance style adventure.

Hence, I swung by my favorite addictive fix, Barnes & Noble, and picked up a map and a tour book, Touring the Western North Carolina Backroads, by Carolyn Sakowski. It features 21 specific tour routes that bypass the typical tourist routes and instead, focuses on unspoiled landscapes and pastoral scenery. The tours are all well under 85 miles round trip, and the book includes some interesting history and local stories about each region.

I could not afford a birthday party or expensive presents for Kendall this year, so this will be our way of celebrating his birthday, which was today – just him, his sister and me in search of adventure in the NC mountains. I’m so excited with anticipation, I’m worried I won’t be able to get to sleep!

Thus, I bid thee farewell for a day or so, whilst I collect what I’m HOPING will be my bestus fall color pics EVER! I must be off to clean off memory media and charge batteries!

I’ll be back…