The Golden Hour

Many people mind getting out of bed in the morning. Does it make me strange to admit that I myself look forward to it? I love my morning drive to work, especially when I have time to take the more rural routes. I actually look forward to seeing what the day has brought and discovering new reasons to live, and love, and breathe, and touch, and feel.

There is something delightful happening around here. It begins slowly. You barely notice it at first. A few yellow leaves here and there. An orange vine. A touch of red. And then everything just . . . shines. The autumn foliage display is on its way and it is one of the very best shows of the year!

The show is especially fine during the golden hour. For me, the golden hour that I am out and about taking pictures often happens to be the hour just after sunrise (though never do I get a full hour; more often, it's 10 or 15 minutes here or there). Many other photographers are out enjoying the hour before sunset, which is a very fine time of day as well. If you're looking for gold, those are the two best times of the day to find it. Photographically speaking, anyway.

In the mornings, the golden light shines through the trees and turns the scene into pure magic. I was driving on this day along route 550, which is one of the ways I can go to get to work. And the light was so pretty through the trees that I grabbed my camera and started taking pictures. (No, in general, I do not recommend this.) Above is one of the dozen or so shots that I took, of a particularly pleasing bend in the road.

I must also say that I have been neglectful in telling you this, but here's some very happy news: my gold Mazda (yes, gold - another reason why we can call this the golden hour!) is back on the road! About two weeks ago, my husband arranged to get it fixed. For about $90, a mechanic in the valley replaced both brake lines. And now we are road-worthy again! Tra-la!

Since the Mazda's brakes went in late July, I have been cobbling together my travel to work. Some days I took my husband's big black Chevy Impala. Other days I took my Chevy Sonic. (Yes, we own four cars, three of which I can drive, if they're drivable.) Many times I simply took the G bus. Every day, I had to get up and figure out what my plan was for the day.

The constant swapping of cars poses some challenges. One is remembering your parking tag. (Which I forgot one day, but thankfully, I did not get ticketed.) The other is remembering WHICH CAR IS YOURS in the parking lot. Sincere apologies to the work colleague/friend who caught me trying to break into his large, dark car in the back row of the parking lot. (I SWEAR I thought it was the Impala, and boy was I confused when my key didn't fit!)

But all of that is done. (She said hopefully.) Now that my Mazda's back, I just get up in the morning and drive my favorite car, which has a sunroof and a kickin' CD player/stereo. You know that feeling when you and the car become one and you don't even have to THINK about the driving you are doing? Yes, that's how it is now. We're back on the road, my Mazda and me. Hooray!

I have decided on TWO soundtrack songs for this morning's photo. The first tune is from the CD I was listening to, REO Speedwagon's Good Trouble. Every single song on it makes me happy, and maybe one or two of the REO fans noticed that line from the song The Key that ended my first paragraph of this blip. :-) My second tune is a driving song by the incomparable Cyndi Lauper. Man, that gal has got some pipes. Here's Cyndi with I Drove All Night.